


The Immortal Duo

by Kechk



Category: Korean Drama, 쓸쓸하고 찬란하神 - 도깨비 | Goblin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bickering, Discussions of Self Harm, Discussions of Suicide, Domesticity, Drabble, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, SO, Superpowers, cheesy old men, depending lol, im no good at writing it but no one else is writing anything for me, occasional smut if i feel up to it, smitten everyone, some au fic maybe, somebody kill me pls, stupid dorks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-09-22 10:14:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 25,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9603518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kechk/pseuds/Kechk
Summary: Collection of Yeo x Shin drabbles and oneshots (and occasional fan art) because they’re practically a married couple and I'm complete trash for them.





	1. Early Morning Rendezvous

**Author's Note:**

> Basically all sorts of stupid domestic fluff (and if I can stop laughing like a maniac smut because wtf two sexy bickering immortal men in the same house for years just imagine). I saw a few gifs and their tags on tumblr and it's just so unfairrrr I'm very bitter about these two not remaining friends at least. 
> 
> I have lots of au versions of the reaper oh my god. What is this. I’ve been cursed. Wtf how have I written so many fics. I must be losing my sanity AHAHahA
> 
> I think my writing has improved a teensy bit from this recent splurge tho. So yas.
> 
> Also, Sunny and Eun Tak are goddesses. Never forget that.
> 
> Chapter summaries:  
> 1) The goblin is woken up constantly by the alarms the reaper sets for early morning assignments.  
> 2) The house had become a home when they found each other.  
> 3) Kim Shin becomes a waiter at his sister's restaurants. He has trouble with some of the regulars.  
> 4) Shin and Yeo have a conversation about their pasts by the sea.  
> 5) Shin and Yeo discuss the dynamics of their relationship. (NSFW)  
> 6) Shin has the habit of conversing to his house to make it feel less empty.  
> 7) The reaper wants to leave the mansion. The goblin, to his surprise, has a different reaction to the news.  
> 8) Deok Hwa has to sleep over at the mansion because of Secretary Kim. He loses his sanity in the process. (NSFW)  
> 9) Shin and Yeo share about past lovers, partners and the past.  
> 10) Eun Tak and Yeo talk about parents and parenthood.  
> 11) Fanart dump.  
> 12) Fluffy drabbles.  
> 13) Some moments of laughter.  
> 14) Shin's return from limbo.  
> 15)He didn’t mean to do it, truly.

As the mechanical clock’s hour hand pointed at 3 and the alarm echoed through the house, the reaper pushed away the covers, blinking the sleep out of his eyes.

He had an assignment at 3:30 am. Some man was about to die from kidney failure, an alcoholic. Dragging himself out of the bed, he made his way to his bathroom freshen up and change.

There was no love for early assignments.

_ Why can’t people die at more considerate hours? _

“What in the world are you doing up so early?”

“Ack!” The reaper had jumped in shock, toothbrush lodging itself into his throat. Sputtering on toothpaste and foam he scolded.

“Why are you in my toilet?!” He was still bent over, coughing up the toothpaste he had swallowed.

Shin sidled next to him, helpfully patting his back. “Your alarm’s loud. The h’se is empth’.” yawning, the goblin blinked blearily. “I can hear everythin’.”

Had Yeo not been choking he would have bitten his lips in discomfort. What 900 year old acted like some sleepy toddler? The goblin was drooling slightly and it should have been disgusting to him. Instead it was… cute?

Swallowing down his feelings just as his face heated up he shoved the goblin out of the toilet.

“Get out!”

Shin just giggled all the way to the door.

* * *

The next time he has another assignment at some ungodly hour, he makes sure his room door is locked. It doesn’t prevent the goblin from coming in but he hopes it’ll deter him a little bit at least.

It would be a glaring ‘don’t come in or else’ sign. So he hoped.

Before stepping out of the shower Yeo reached out towards the towel rack. Only to find it empty. He must have forgotten to replace the rack with fresh towels.

Stepping out of the toilet dripping wet he was met with bright flash. 

Yelping in surprise he slipped on the floor mat, falling onto his back.

The goblin’s loud laughter and the click of Eun Tak’s camera filled the room.

“HAHAHA! Oh my god Eun Tak is going to find this on her camera tomorrow morning and you’ll be responsible for scarring her for life!”

The goblin made a quick exit through the door, teleporting to god knows where in the world. The grim reaper was convulsing with fury on the now wet floor.

“Goblin-!” He hissed. There would be hell to pay.

* * *

It had been a nice surprise to find out that the goblin was not a quiet sleeper.

He was a sleep talker. A very honest and open sleep talker.

Yeo had the grin of a cheshire cat.

With his phone in hand, he recorded the sleeping man whilst interogating him.

“What exactly did you do to make the humans make the song about your underwear?”

“I was drunk andf- I wassss wandering through thisss town filled with- with alot of drying underwear- sssoooo I decided to pull off my own and find sooomeone- to help me wash my dirty underwearr- hehe-”

The reaper shared the video with three of the four contacts on his phone, the goblin’s stripping and waltzing in public naked becoming public knowledge.

In the goblin’s rage, the heat had ruined the paintings he collected throughout the house. Eun Tak, the angel, had wanted laugh, scold and comfort him all at once.

“You were the one who started it you know.”

He had sobbed harder, clutching his ruined  _ Duchamp  _ painting.

* * *

“Could you not wake up so early? Your alarm jolts me awake and after that I can’t sleep. How does Eun Tak stay unconscious?” 

The goblin stood at the reaper’s bedroom door, hugging a pillow whilst he pouted grumpily.

Ignoring him, the reaper reached into his messenger bag for the list of names for his next assignment. It was a thick stack.

Shoving all of them into his coat pocket he picked up his hat and turned towards the door. Unhelpfully, the goblin barred his way.

“Are you going to move or do you not know how to do that either?”

“You’ve always called me a stupid goblin.”

“You are.”

Shin merely glanced at the door’s four corners before sending the reaper a look that said ‘Well, here we are.’

He didn’t have the time nor patience for this. The next assignment was depressing, an overworked truck driver would cause a massive collision with a tour bus loaded with passengers. The roads were empty so there would be no help until much later, they would perish slowly from their wounds.

It was always difficult to see humans draw in their last breath but he made it his responsibility to at least accompany the alone and dying.

He teleported past the goblin and walked towards the door’s entrance. 

Why he never teleported out of the house before leaving through the main doors, he would never know.

It just felt customary that he inform the inhabitants he was leaving.

“Did-did you just teleport through me?!” The goblin shrieked into fear. “You probably cursed me with an ill omen or disease or something!” He proceeded to dramatically claw at his chest, eyes bulging with mock horror.

“Take a shower with horse blood, that’ll rid you of whatever I just did to you.” The reaper had turned and given him an evil smirk.

“How dare you! I’ll-” He grit his teeth, stomping his way to the reaper.

Welp, time to run.

They chased like cat and mouse through the mansion, shoving chairs and tables like an obstacle course. 

By the time the reaper made it to the door, he was panting with a sly grin on his face. As a reaper who could teleport, fitness wasn’t exactly something he had to maintain. Nevertheless, he was about to make his great escape, victory was his. 

Just as his hand reached for the doorknob however, it burst into blue flames and he yelped in surprise, clutching his slightly burnt hand. It tingled and the sensation was strange and foreign. He was hardly ever harmed by things from the mortal plane, a knife would leave only the dull feeling of pressure on his skin, unable to pierce it. 

He had never injured himself like this before.

“I’ll get you for that!” Oblivious to the other man’s newest distraction, he pounced and bodily tackled the reaper from the back, his immediate plan of preventing the reaper’s escape.

Feeling his lungs crushed between the goblin’s weight and the cold floor, the reaper fell with an ‘oof’, clearly not expecting the physical contact.

That was a rarity in his time as a reaper too, what with his ability to read memories via touch.

“Because of you I can’t even get a good night’s sleep!” The goblin scolded into the other’s ears, annoyance dripping from his words.

Recovering quickly, the reaper was suddenly hyper aware of the position he was in. Shoving off the goblin in a tremendous show of strength, he got up and patted down his slightly wrinkling coat, only to wince at his burnt finger tips.

“Did I do that?” Shin had queried with concern, horror creeping into his features.

“It’s okay, just a flesh wound.” He would shake it off and be off on his merry way. 

“It’s not  _ just  _ a flesh wound, that’s some nasty burns.” cradling his wounded hand, Shin used his other one to prod gently at the angry red patch where the fire had licked.

It was difficult to hold a wince when he rarely felt mortal wounds in his 300 year long lifetime.

“Wait here.” Shin ordered before dashing into the kitchen for a medical kit.

Absently, the reaper felt the slight cool tingle where the goblin’s hands had been. It had been  _ warm.  _ He also pondered the merits of using a human first aid kit on wounds made from goblin fire.

Shin had wordlessly applied the antiseptic and bandages. He had been a general before, knowing the latest first aid techniques had been a priority ingrained into his being. 

“There you go, you snowflake.” He gave his hand a gentle pat before noticing the other’s discomfort at the attention.

“...thanks.” The reaper whispered, face down.

Oh. The goblin hadn’t expected to make things awkward. Uhhh.

“I’ll… go now.” 

“Uh. Yeah. Don’t cry like a wimp in front of those people.” He pointed at the other’s coat pocket.

“Bah!” The reaper stepped through the doors and disappeared in a puff of black smog.

“Tsk, no goodbye?”

* * *

The reaper felt a comfortable warmth in his heart when he saw the souls off. Somehow, it wasn’t as lonely.

“Are you going off again?”

This time, the goblin had caught the grim reaper by the front door entrance.

About to give a witty reply, he bit his tongue abruptly, taking in the sight of the goblin before him.

Shin had puffy and tired eyes, his shoulders drooped and his arms hung limp from his shoulders. He looked like he was  _ exhausted _ . The reaper sympathised, he too was prone to sleep deprivation for matters of the heart. 

“Yes, there’s going to be leukemia patient in the nearby hospital.”

“Oh, okay. Don’t leave yet.” He disappeared into his room and emerged, pulling a thick coat onto himself and wrapping a red and white gingham scarf.

“What are you doing?” The reaper asked with an eyebrow raised.

“Getting ready to go out.” The other had replied matter-of-factly.

“Why?” his face twisted in faux disgust and irritation.

“There’s a convenience store nearby there. I’m hungry.”

The reaper relented, Shin looked like he needed some company anyway.

They had retrieved the patient, a young girl of 15 and told her the afterlife could wait for a while. 

The trio made their way to the convenience store and Shin had so helpfully forgotten his wallet. The reaper pulled out most of the notes he had in his pocket, feeling his miserly heart weep.

“Mister goblin, are you sure you should buy that many snacks? The grim reaper looks like he’s going to cry because of his wallet.”

“Eh, he’ll get over it. Here.” He handed her a tub of ice cream and potato chips. To humans, they would appear to be floating in mid air.

On a bench in a park, the three of them sat together quietly in the chilly, early morning air, the two men’s breaths causing wisps of vapour to float and dissipate into the darkness. 

With a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth, Shin twisted towards the reaper, eyeing the bucket of fries he was hoarding for himself.

“Give me some of that, fries go well with ice cream.” He reached past the girl happily munching on what may have been her last taste of mortal potato chips. 

“Get your own, these are mine.” He brought the fries closure to his chest, tilting away from the goblin. Just because mortals perished from starchy, fatty and greasy foods, didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy them himself.

“Don’t get in the way of perfect food combinations!” Shin had wailed, as if the reaper’s palate was a horrible travesty on earth. 

“That’s disgusting! Get it out of my face!” Shin was attempting to plop a large scoop of ice cream on the fries, it was wobbling dangerously on the tiny spoon. The reaper’s hand was pressed onto the goblin’s face, an attempt to shove him away whilst guarding his starchy treasure. “Don’t you dare drop that spoon on my coat. You do the laundry for a week and see if you like it!”

“I’m just trying to make you see in the error of your ways!” he yelled before smacking the spoonful of ice cream on the reaper’s nose. It slicked downwards and onto his pants.

“Agh! I’ll make you suffer for a month!” growling, he shoved the french fries into the goblin’s face, wiping down whatever he could with his handkerchief.

“Yasss, victory tastes so good.” Shin hunkered down, sticking the french fries into his ice cream and savouring the salty and sweet taste.

“You guys make it so awkward to sit in between you two.”

A pause.

“You two are like a bickering married couple.”

Said duo sobered up, sidling to the girl on both sides with a synchronised “What?!”

“I said, that you two are so cheesy and fluffy with each other I feel like I’m choking from it. You’re just like my parents. Eugh, get a room already and spare me in public.”

She stomped off onto the road, two guffawing men stumbling after her.

“Shouldn’t she be thanking us for giving her such a good time before she dies?”

“She’s so disrespectful to her elders.”

“I doubt she thinks of you as a mature adult.”

“At least I’m the cool dad and not the killjoy mom.” With a lopsided grin, he shoved a few ice cream coated fries into the reaper’s mouth, opened with a retort in defense, shutting him up effectively.

The reaper found that ice cream and fries did kind of go well together.

* * *

As he lay at home in bed with a full belly and giddiness from laughing, he fell into a peaceful slumber.

* * *

One morning, just before the reaper left for another job, he stopped by the door, wondering where the goblin was.

He had gotten used to the other man bothering him in the wee hours prior to the sun rising. 

Waiting for a few more minutes before he left, he felt an unknown weight in his heart. There was still work to be done so he had hurried through it, hastily wrapping up matters in the tea house before returning home.

“Oh, you’re back.”

He was greeted with the sight of a morose goblin cutting up apples in the kitchen. There were apple cores and peels littered across the kitchen top. Just how many apples was the goblin eating?

He gave no reply, instead communicating with his eyes scrunched nose what the goblin was doing with this many apples so early in the morning.

“Oh, this just sort of happened.” He replied sheepishly before focusing on the apple and blade in his hands. The reaper realised then that the apple slices on the place had been so thinly sliced, as if all of the goblin’s attentions had been poured into them.

He knew from experience that such immense focus could only be driven by keenly felt emotion. By the somberness in the goblin’s eyes and his shallow, quiet breaths, the goblin was feeling despondent.

The reaper did not like what was implied from Shin holding a blade so deftly and slicing apples so carefully in the gloomy morning alone.

Behind the laughter, jokes and smiles, this was a man who had wanted to die for 900 years and been unable. The in between was a dark mystery but he had an idea. Shin would forget sometimes, to eat. Then realising he hadn’t stuck to a typical human’s schedule, he’d stuff himself to the brim. He had been like that once, when he struck the 127th year of his services as a reaper. He had attempted to starve himself just to see what the consequences were. 

It was easy to forget that people only became aware of their conditions through experience. 

Removing his coat and hat, he gently placed them on a seat nearby before standing by the goblin’s side and taking the knife from his hand.

“I’ll teach you how to make the apple bunnies I made for Deok Hwa.”

That morning was quiet and cold, the silence only broken by the reaper’s detailed instructions and warmed by the comfort of each other’s company.

* * *

Sometimes, the goblin would follow the reaper through the door for his early morning assignments.

Once, these assignments involved an old folk’s home on fire. The lack of mobility meant few could be saved from the burning house.

The group of reapers and one goblin stood vigilant in their duty to see the dead to the afterlife.

“They lived a good long life.” Shin had whispered to himself when they both went away from the gossiping reapers.

“Isn’t that the goblin? Why is he with senior reaper Kim?”

“Shut up you idiot! Do you want him to hear you?”

“Do you want a beer? I’ll buy it.” Shin had turned towards him with a smile that did not quite reach his eyes.

“After you spent all your ‘hard-earned’ cash on snacks?” His laugh had been hollow but tinged with some hidden emotion.

The reaper had the strong urge to hug the man.

“I’ll buy it. Come on.”

Back in the house, they sat side by side with beers in their hands at the dining table. The night was not entirely quiet, cicadas in the garden chirped and the grandfather clock in the living room ticked consistently, metal parts clinking and clanking noisily.

“If that clock wasn’t owned by Queen Marie Antoinette, I would have thrown it out already.” He grumbled, taking a sip of his beer.

“How did you keep it working?”

“Dunno. I once woke up after blacking out from alcohol to all sorts of engineering books and restoration of mechanical antique books strewn all over the floor. The clock was right there, working just fine.”

“Just like that?” The reaper’s words were slurring, eyes drooping.

“Just like that.” The goblin was not far off from oblivion either.

“Hmm.” The reaper’s red luscious lips had pressed together as he hummed, blearily thinking about how fixing something so old couldn’t have been easy, especially when drunk. He was a realistic supernatural being.

Regardless, he let the image of Shin’s adept fingers tinkering with the tiny cogs and chains of the clock’s inner workings. Never had the idea of the clumsy goblin showing such care to an inanimate object existed in his mind before. The goblin was materialistic. That didn’t mean he didn’t cherish the things he had. The man was a sentimental sap, placing meaning into all sorts of trinkets in his home.

Absently, he realised that he too was an inhabitant of the goblin’s luxurious mansion. A precious artifact under his care. Shin would look at him with eyes that just screamed of appreciation.

The goblin was looking at him like that right now, through half-lidded eyes. 

When Shin’s hands held his face gently, pulling him into an experimental peck, he let himself enjoy the softness of the gesture. 

Shutting his eyes, he wound his arms around the goblin’s wool sweater, responding to the kiss. 

Against the morning chill, the other’s body was alike the comforting heat of a fireplace.Gentle touches that travelled across their backs as if holding something precious and fragile. 

As the kiss deepened, tongues tasting the bitterness of alcohol and breathing in the faint scent of smoke, their hearts drummed faster as passion thrummed through their veins.

The reaper's long lashes fluttered as Shin nibbled his bottom lip, their noses touching and his fingers combing through the other’s dark black hair.

Parting their lips, they panted in each others’ embrace. The goblin whispered into the reaper's ears, eliciting a slight shiver to travel through him as he rested his head on Shin's shoulder.

Holding onto each other, they padded through the empty house towards the nearest bedroom before shutting the doors.

* * *

 

“I hate waking up early in the morning.”

“I hate waking up in general.” The reaper grumbled into the bed, body splayed face down, half on top of Shin, one quarter on the bed and one quarter out of the bed. 

“I didn't know you were such a disorganised sleeper. What happened to the 'most comfortable way to sleep’?” He mumbled into the chocolate curls.

“I found a better position to sleep in.” He giggles as he feels the other man hum in agreement.

"Good morning."

"Good morning to you too."

 

 

 

-end-


	2. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The house had become a home when they found each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just something short and sweet after the ridiculously long first instalment. I was going to write dragged out smut but today has been filled with feelings. 
> 
> So. Here you go.

His first encounter with Shin was met with burnt lease copies and food fights.

Then, there was the agony of seeing the goblin confused over his goblin bride. He himself had been caught up in the mystery that was Sunny.

Thereafter, there was the sharing of beers and teary confessions. During these moments, the reaper considered the companionship a balm to his troubles. It had been nice to find support and give it as he were able. 

Fact was and still is that, he is not entirely human. Neither is the goblin. 

Two supernatural beings sharing the experience of perplexing human nature and the arduous burdens of a superhuman condition. That similarity led the reaper believe he had found the perfect  rapport to his small social circle, someone who  _ understood _ without a doubt, what it was like to agonise over memory (forgotten or unforgettable) and the toll immortality brought upon one’s mind and soul.

It had been nice, to find comfort in the other’s presence. With him, the mansion had become a home. 

If only there wasn’t a  _ past,  _ bloodied with paranoia, suspicion and mistrust. 

If only he wasn’t  _ Wang Yeo  _ and the Goblin his general  _ Kim Shin. _

As he looked about the empty living room, he couldn’t help the tears from bursting forth.

He had found a home but he could not return to it, not when he had done so terrible a sin to its owner.

He did not deserve forgiveness but he apologised anyway. 

“I’m sorry.”

* * *

It had been difficult, to see in the reaper’s face, the face of his murderer.

As he sipped the bitter liquid, he felt the pleasant burn travel down his throat. He should have never have let hope wiggle into his heart.

The reaper,  _ Wang Yeo _ , had come to his lonely sanctuary and brought with him the simple happiness that came with their childish antics and the soothing empathy only someone suffering like himself could provide.

Those moments had made life as a goblin bearable. He had found someone to live with as if there was only the present, no dark past to mourn and rage, no future to dread and fear. He had helped him  _ focus,  _ on what was around him. He made waking up easier, made him eat on time more often, made him remember important dates for his few special people. 

When he had suggested the cake for Eun Tak’s finals, the reaper had given him a chance to  _ look forward  _ to something. 

_ “You two can go for a movie or something after. Bring her out on a date, she deserves it you silly goblin.”  _ He had chastised but behind the scathing tone of his voice, his eyes had only communicated a desire for him to  _ survive _ through the ordeal that was long life. 

He understood, how his bones felt heavy despite his good health. 

To find a bond like that with someone, he had found putting one foot after the other easier.

He found his house becoming a home.

He was  _ Wang Yeo _ , but he was also the Grim Reaper. 

And that, was enough for him to offer his house to him again.

“A new home.”

 

 

-end-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	3. Internal Affairs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Sunny discovers how her brother brings wealth to her restaurant, she decides that there are not enough hands in her restaurant and hires her brother. Cue Shin x unruly customers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found shippy, sexy things on twitter and I am super happy so it resulted in the birth of this fic. Nothing naughty lol. Maybe the next chap.
> 
> I think you can consider this one a crack version because I touched on the everyone-hates-the-lgbtq-community-hating-bigot trope. I honestly don't plan out how my fic goes, I just write and post and regret. 
> 
> I just really like the idea of four of them as a super kickass team together. I need to squash down my silly imagination.

“Why did I agree to do this again?” The goblin whined as he put on the apron Sunny’s waiters and waitresses wore.

“Because we’re short on staff and you don’t do anything at home but eat, sleep and watch dramas.” Eun Tak supplied, shutting her locker.

“I’m offended. How could you criticise the goblin who brings miracles to humans all over the country? I should take back that loan I gave you for your studies.” Shin placed his hand on his chest, faking a heart attack.

“Oh don’t be dramatic. It’s not your full time job, you have plenty of time to spare. Anyway, you bring customers to the restaurant, shouldn’t you help out your sister? Also, we had an agreement. I’ll pay you back when I can pay you, or is your word not worth anything, Mr Goblin?” Eun Tak gave him a sly grin. 

_ I should have never made friends with such a well-spoken human.  _ Grumbling, the goblin made his way to his sister, now his boss.

“Okay. Shin, you’ll be waitering tables 1 to 15. Don’t be discourteous to customers, don’t use your powers for anything but bringing in customers.” Sunny intoned seriously.

“Isn’t this sibling abuse?”

“No, it’s called business. The economy’s bad you know.”

“So you’re using me to take advantage of people facing financial problems?”

“Hush. You’re just a sit-in while we find a permanent replacement anyway. Eun Tak will be mentoring you on the smaller details of the job. Now, I need to go speak to a graphic designer, we’re revamping the menu soon.” With that, she flicked her hair and strode to her small office upstairs. 

“This is definitely sibling abuse.”

Eun Tak shoved a waiting tray at him and stared with eyes that bid him to start work.

* * *

Shin hadn’t known that there were reapers who weren’t vegetarian. He had assumed they all were just because Yeo was like that.

He also didn’t know they were regulars at his sister’s restaurant.

“What are you all doing here?” He snarled at them, slapping menus onto their table. 

The reaper community reminded him of God’s bureaucracy and meddling. They were also notorious for gossip and ogling humans. There was also the fact that his sister and ex-turned-friend were humans.

“Why are you here goblin? Shouldn’t you be guarding your cave of treasure?” A reaper with a double chin and a moustache so hideous Shin was tempted to shave it for him had sneered at him. 

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m working.”

“I didn’t expect the all powerful goblin to be doing something so plebeian as waitering. Maybe your reputation as some terrifying entity precedes you.” 

His eye twitched. Calming thoughts calming thoughts. Sunny would kill him if she found out he strangled one of her best paying customers. There had always been tension between himself and the reapers because of his notoriety to resort to violence whenever someone gave offence. (He was easily offended.) Plus, apparently a reaper's ice abilities were ineffective against goblin fire. Many reapers were sore losers.

_ Why didn’t Sunny just ask for his wealth? Right, because she wants to earn it herself. By using me. Temporarily.  _

_ All part of living as a human. _

“We don’t like your mug here in this restaurant. It was better when there were only girls working here.” One of the younger reapers were wisely pulling at their senior’s arms, hoping to snap him out of  _ digging his own grave. _

Shin had given him a cold, wide and toothy grin.  _ Oh he was going to have so much fun beating these assholes up- _

“Ah, Senior Reaper Kim there you are. Sorry I’m late, I was a little caught up in the tea house.”

Turning, Shin found his lover staring back at him, shoulders tense and fingers trembling slightly. The last assignment must have been a bad one. 

“Shin? What are you doing here?”

“Subjecting myself to  _ my sister’s  _ brand of torture.” He gave the seated reaper a deathly glare before inquiring Yeo telepathically.  _ I told you the other morning. Don’t you remember? _

Yeo blinked in surprise at the sudden intrusion in his head.  _ Oh, I thought it was just part of some dream.  _

The goblin pursed his lips, his reaper was experiencing a period of melancholy because of his assignments. Recently, they were all suspiciously depressing.  _ Probably because Senior Reaper Kim seems like a complete asshole to his subordinates. _

They had agreed to keep their relationship a secret for fear of some of the less accepting in the reaper community. It was easy if you had a choice to where you worked and if the annoyance was someone with their own lives to live. Even though they were immortal and superpowered as part of being sentenced for their past sins, they still had their human propensity to hate. Not everyone drew meaning from their current life, not every reaper drew meaning from the many dead people they met. Sensitivity and empathy was a character trait God had no sway over. God acted only after a battle, reactive in dealing out his punishment. 

“Oh.” Was all he got in response before Yeo sat himself down amongst his colleagues to go through some paperwork.

Reluctantly, Shin retreated to the back, concern twisting his features.

“I know that look. What’s up?”

Eun Tak knew how to read him like a book and was his trusted confidant due to the past they shared together.

“I don’t like Yeo’s seniors. They give you and Sunny looks I don’t like.” He pouted. 

“There are  _ always  _ men and women ogling us, they don’t do anything more than that though so it’s okay. We can handle it. What are you really concerned about?”

“Yeo has been agonising about something. It’s a hunch, but I think his seniors have something to do with it.” He finally revealed.

“That is troubling, but you’ll only know if you ask Yeo himself.”

* * *

As he thought, Yeo was concerned about some of his seniors finding out about their status. It had been sparked by their knowledge of them living in the same house.

_ “What?! You live with THE Goblin?” _

No reaper in their right mind would  _ ever  _ live with another supernatural being  _ unless  _ they were exceptionally close. It was an unspoken rule that despite their mutual circumstances, reapers should not come together because it created a complicated tangle. They could be sleeping with their mother in a past life for all they knew.

Honestly, Shin hadn’t thought that much into the implications of their relationship. Before they came to be there had been Eun Tak and Sunny. 

He was sleeping with his past murderer, now best friend and beloved.

Past lives both did and did not matter he supposed. 

“Ah, Reaper Kim, what do you do during your downtime? I imagine having to live with the Goblin is a huge thorn in your side.” They were suspicious of their relationship, scorn present in their mocking tone.

“It’s alright. Sir, if you’ll look here there has been some sort of administrative error-”

“Hah. Alright. Are you sure there’s nothing going on between you two?”

“Sir, please, this error is an urgent matter-”

“What is an urgent matter is what your superiors ask of you. Are you and the  _ creature _ really living under the same roof as landlord and tenant?”

“Yes.” Yeo bit out the words. It wasn’t a lie, they did have a tenancy agreement.

“Oooh, little shy to talk aren’t you? Why is that?” His senior leered. Yeo could feel fury and helplessness curl in his stomach, his seniors could threaten him by simply adjusting his assignments. Depending on the person, his assignments could be horrifyingly disturbing or simply less significant. Every life deserved solace before departure, but he felt he was skilled and experienced enough to better help certain souls than others. 

His seniors had no qualms in doing that, having the higher up’s access to the soul’s history to help with assigning the letters to appropriate reapers. It wasn’t an official crime because no mortal lives were directly affected. 

He had experienced it once, his senior’s version of punishment. He had been assigned a soul that was terrified of men of his age and height. They had had traumatic experiences with someone who looked like him and the poor soul had been terrified prior to losing their memories.

It was not nice to know how he’d made the soul’s last moments one of abject terror.

He would endure his seniors prodding for their sakes. It was a relief that Shin understood the consequences if they retaliated. His clenched fist was aching to pound the other reaper’s smug face.

“Are you two sleeping with each other like fags?”

Truly, if God heard his pleas to remember, surely he would hear his pleas to  _ sic the audit team on his seniors.  _

* * *

“It’s amusing to see you serving fried chicken when you’re terrified about chicken’s blood.”

“Eugh, I can’t wait to get out of there. I never knew Sunny was such a  _ slave driver.  _ Poor Eun Tak, I should be nicer to her.”

“That’s true. You need to be nicer to people. Not everyone has my patience with you.” Yeo mock scolded.

“I always believed everyone has a daily quota to being nice and be mean. Are you saying I should channel all that into angry sex?” The goblin gave the other a shark toothed grin.

“Why do I put up with you is a question even god cannot answer.” Yeo muttered, exasperated, before tugging the other into a bruising kiss.

“We should do something for the two of them. They're suffering because of the reaper bullies.” Eun Tak suggested whilst washing the dishes. Shin had dashed off saying Yeo wanted to make dinner for the female members of their dysfunctional family so he  _ had  _ to help.

“Like what? You and I both know how hard it is to stop bullies protected by the systems in place. More so if you're going against supernatural bureaucracies.” Sunny was helping by wiping the clean dishes.

“There must be something to be done against all this. I can't stand watching Shin or Yeo squirm whenever that reaper comes in.” 

“Yeah, he gives off that bad vibe. He must've been a puppy kicker when he was alive.”

“Mhm.” Eun Tak agreed whilst passing her boss a clean red plate.

_ Red. _

_ Samshin granny. _

“I know what to do!”

* * *

The two women had tracked down the elusive lady in red. She was at a children's hospital, quite popular with the kids actually.

“You're the goddess of fate, where everyone starts out from should be your usual haunt.”

The Samshin had given them a playful grin.

“For my carelessness I'll lend you my ear. What story do my favourite children have to tell?”

* * *

It had been unexpected really, for his senior to undergo an audit and to have new laws in place for the reaper community.

There would be more screening for internal abuse of power. Yeo's senior had been demoted due to his misdemeanour in the workplace.

It didn't mean there weren't people with 'opinions’ about a reaper and goblin living together. At least there was nothing to threaten them with anymore.

Also, Yeo found himself promoted to being the one to distribute assignments.

“Yay! Job promotion celebration! Mister Reaper please buy us dinner! I want barbeque!” Eun Tak was in the mood to celebrate.

“Yeah, the restaurant has me exhausted and I have cause to celebrate too. I finally got some extra hands, they're nice to stare at too.” Sunny stretched her sore arms before reaching out to direct Yeo towards a popular barbeque place. Eun Tak was chaperoning on the exasperated reaper's other side.

“Hey! Don't say things like that, you'll hurt your brother's self esteem!” Shin had tackled all three of them from the back, making for a strange ensemble. 

“Fine, fine. I think I've got enough money I saved from graves this month.”

“It's okay, you can just order some cold buckwheat noodles. That's cheap. We'll have glorious beef!”

"That's barbaric."

"Quit bickering you two. Eun Tak and I are starving."

 

-end-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm not the only one who has thought of a polyamorous relationship between all of them, right? Ha Ha Ha. Oh god. I'm in too deep.
> 
> I still have peeves over Eun Tak's age in canon, she is mature in the later bits of the show but I just couldn't get rid of the vibe that she was dating her uncle when she dated Shin. (All the ahjussi's man what) If there wasn't the talk abt brides and marriage and stuff, I would have looked at it as a cute parent taking care/adopting poor child relationship. (Said child is also occasionally well informed and witty) Age is a number and all that but I thought she just wasn't ready and ahk Shin/EunTak was just slightly disturbing for me. Sometimes I wonder if she was that age just for viewer's wish fulfilment lol. Wish they could have bumped up the age she met Shin, it would've been nice to see an adult still retain her innocence and naiveté (and that is indeed her best quality, her positivity for humanity). I don't mind age gaps in relationships, I mind when a character decides to enter something resembling a serious relationship and whether or not they really are mature enough to handle themselves. I'm the same age as Eun Tak and all I'm good for is obsessing over older men online and feeling trepidation at driving on the road. Ha.
> 
> Whatever. The focus is shin and yeo here haha. stupid men
> 
> Hope you liked it!


	4. A Conversation by the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shin and Yeo talk about the times before they met their friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut is difficult to write. Writing is hard. So difficult to keep characters acting in-character. Agh. So have some angst before I finish it. Idk. 
> 
> A slight change in style I think. More descriptive to match the pace I suppose. I'm afraid I'm no good at describing scenery lol. Hopefully it's an improvement.
> 
> The setting for this is after everyone's funerals in Everlasting Love. Shin and Yeo are just wiling away the time on dates to places around the world.

It had been 10 years since Eun Tak had passed away from old age, 16 years since Deok Hwa left them, 18 years since Sunny shut her eyes and walked up heaven's steps.

They had mourned at their loss but death was a familiar concept. Knowing their family members would reincarnate brought solace. What was different for both Shin and Yeo in the near-millenia worth of memories was that for once, there was someone to share the grief with. Even in the period after their funerals, there was something to look forward to. Their antics with each other filled the days with laughter, their rapport and intimacy brought warmth and comfort. Immortality wore them down sometimes but having someone made breathing easier.

If Shin had been poetic, he would have said that their relationship could withstand the corrosion of time. Not every moment shined but not every moment was filled with darkness either, he felt they could outlive the pain and suffering despite its constant looming. They had each other to remind themselves there was something worth existing for.

Today was one of the days that called for steady companionship.

After visiting their friend’s graves, the two had made their way to a quiet and cold beach in another continent, clinking glasses of wine Sunny had gotten for them for their 20th anniversary together.

The alcohol made their insides warm, their calm breaths forming ephemeral vapours, the chilly wind pulling at their coats whilst they enjoyed the view and the other’s soothing presence.

“We really are like an old married couple.” Shin had murmured, eyes lost to the vastness of the ocean, its waves perpetually caressing the shore, the sound of the push and pull matching his breath.

Every shared moment was precious between them but it was the quiet ones like this one that meant the most.

“Eun Tak was right about us from the beginning.” Yeo put down his glass and laid down. Shutting his eyes, he snuggled into the other’s folded lap, cheek on the other’s thigh. The goblin distractedly ran his hand through dark curls, petting with gentle fingers.

“Mhm.” He hummed, gaze fixated on the horizon.

The reaper melted under the touch, heartbeat evening, muscles relaxed. There was only the salty smell of the sea mixed with the scent of candle wax on the goblin, traces from the candles they had lit at the graves. Yeo thought about their loved ones, wondering if they were happy in heaven. He hoped they weren’t too impatient to reincarnate, that would spoil the tranquility that was the reward god gave.

“I miss them.”

Blearily, the reaper opened his eyes and twisted to look up at Shin’s slightly trembling jaw, tears brimming and threatening to spill. He reached up with cool fingers, brushing it away with the back of his hands.

“I do too.”

The goblin’s head fell, letting his tears stream, his nose tickling and his shoulders shuddering slightly. All the reaper could do was reach for his hands and rub circles into them with his thumbs.They sat there together for some time, the sound of the sea blanketing the sound of sobs and whispers of comfort.

“Before you met them, what was it like?” Yeo queried, concern laced in his tone.

“What do you mean?” The goblin had inhaled deeply before exhaling a long, calming breath, eyes red.

“The before, the years on your own as a goblin.”

“I wasn’t always alone. I had human friends, acquaintances, flings even. They just went on without me though.”

“Tell me about them.”

A small quirk appeared on the goblin’s lips, his mind wandering in search of the bittersweet memories of his long life. “I once found a friend in a girl called Yu Ling in China, this was during the 20th century. She was only 16 when I met her, the youngest child in her family. She was left behind as her family fled from the mainland to nearby countries. Despite how difficult it was for her to find work and money, she persevered somehow. I was willing to help her by giving her a gold bar, but she told me it didn’t matter because no one had food to offer anyway. Instead, she asked me to give her a good hearty meal so she had energy to run around doing odd jobs. Also, she said I had a strangely good looking face amongst a bunch of ugly adults.”

“She sounds a little like Sunny, resilient and strong-willed. Also, extremely critical on outward appearances.”

“I thought so too. She died a few years later from an accident.”

“I’m sorry.” The reaper wrapped his arms around the goblin’s torso whilst lying on his lap, it was one of the most uncomfortable hugs Shin had ever received.

“You don’t have a lot of experience hugging do you?” Shin had laughed, the reaper’s position tickled and made his thigh numb with the weight. Yeo nuzzled into his thick sweater, mumbling.

“I don’t really want to get up to hug you.”

“You’re like a lazy, oversized cat.”

“Mm.”

“What about you? Did you know anyone alive?”

“Not really, I really only got to know my landlord's, my colleagues and the dead souls.”

Shin leaned back, a hand splayed in the sand behind him, the other patting the other’s back.

“There was one landlord, an old man. He was nice to me.” Shin laughed an honest and light laugh.

“Is this for when Deok Hwa, Eun Tak and I gave you trouble as a tenant?”

“Maybe.” The reaper grinned. Shin removed the reaper from his hips and made to get up, the echoes of smile on his face.

“Come on, let’s walk. My legs are numb from your weight.”

“You’re just an old man.”

“That’s rude!”

“You’re always rude.”

The goblin hummed, a silly quirk on his lips as he trudged along the soft sand, leaving deep imprints in contrast to the reaper’s lighter steps. Faraway, they could see the lighthouse watching over the stretch of dark blue, the bright red a startling contrast to the grey skies.

“Do you remember anything before?” Shin punctuated the silence suddenly.

The reaper tipped his head, eyeing the goblin’s downturned head, confused. “What do you mean?”

“From before you turned into a grim reaper. The 600 years or so in… hell?” Shin’s voice had transformed into a whisper, laced with trepidation at the subject. He knew, that all reapers went through punishment in hell for their sins, god’s wrath made known to their souls. What didn’t usually happen was reapers remembering it all during their repenting period after the tea of oblivion was taken.

Yeo felt the warmth in his skin disappear, the chill seeping into his bones, he felt frozen in time and space, unmoving.

“Hey, it’s okay, you’re okay.” Shin had held him with a firm grip on his biceps, eyes bright with worry and lips releasing gushes of comfort. To have him there was grounding. He had forgiven himself a long time ago, as had the goblin, but the past was still dreary and dark and tainted in pain.

“Sometimes when you sleep, you whisper about it, Goryeo and all. It didn’t… occur to me… that there was a time you weren’t Wang Yeo nor a grim reaper.”

He had been a sinner in hell, reliving through his limbs the crimes he committed in his time alive. Yeo shivered, leaning forward to embrace the other and share the heat only goblin fire exuded.

“I don’t remember all of it, I can’t. There’s only so much a person can remember.” He noted the tenseness of Shin’s back, the way his lungs held their breath. “I remember echoes of the pain you felt when the sword drove through your chest, the feeling of an arrow through Sunny’s heart. Sometimes, even a few of your soldiers’ executions but not more than the ones I saw at the top of the palace steps. It wasn’t… the same. The punishment I received as a grim reaper and as Wang Yeo. I got back my memories of my time as king but the after in hell… I just feel phantom pains from now and then.” Shin tightened his hold around the reaper, eyes clenched tightly.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s a gap in my memory that I’m quite happy not to have.” Yeo patted the goblin’s back awkwardly, he could hear Shin sniffling slightly.

“Why are you the one comforting me? I’m not that rude to let you do that for me.” Shin had chuckled brokenly, lips twitching between something akin to a smile and a frown as he spoke.

“You’re being the sensitive one here, so I have to take up your role in our relationship.” Yeo had huffed jokingly, rubbing soothing circles into the other’s back.

“Let’s go home already. I don’t know what the weather will be like here soon.”

"Don't make it rain."

Shin pulled the reaper towards the general direction of a nearby town, leaving behind only the waves crashing into the mossy rocks, a vibrant green against the backdrop of dull blues and greys. They would be alright together.

  
  
-end-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	5. Discussing Dynamics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shin and Yeo discuss the dynamics of their relationship. (NSFW)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this while listening to Caravan Palace and sad osts. So. Sexy bits and angst mixing together for a silly piece. You really can’t move away from angst when writing about these two. 
> 
> Anyway, the conclusion you should get from this chapter is that it doesn't really make sense for the reaper to always "play wife". The two of them are equally childish af, so their sex reflects that. HAHA I never imagined I would actually write such a sentence in this lifetime. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy it! It's embarrassing to pen something like this omg.

“Obviously, I’m the dominant one in this relationship.” Shin had proudly proclaimed whilst eating the bowl of salad Yeo had forced onto him.

“Just finish your greens and shut up. I have a slight headache at the moment.” The reaper was in the midst of stabbing his iceberg lettuce.

“Aw, did I hurt your feelings?” Shin grinned, slyly attempting to telekinetically throw away his salad without Yeo noticing.

“I’m sensitive, not some precious snowflake.” Yeo had huffed, to Shin’s amusement.

“What’s the difference?”

“For one, I’m not all meek and helpless.”

Shin had the audacity to laugh, spittle reaching the side of the reaper’s face. 

“As if! You’re obedient in bed. You get all grouchy but that isn’t assertiveness.” Yeo had merely used a handkerchief he stored in his coat pocket, still dressed after having just come home from the tea house for dinner. 

His eye twitched but other than that a stone cold silence pervaded the room. Shin felt fear trickle up his spine, the imminent sense of danger catching up to him. Submissive or not, an angry reaper was a terrifying sight to behold. 

Instead of retaliating, Yeo had smiled normally before finishing his food, picking up the dishes and cleaning up. He was quiet throughout.

“Did I… Did I hurt your feelings? Or…?” Shin approached the reaper with caution. He had nothing to fear, right? 

“Just wash the dishes. I’ll wipe them dry.”

“...okay.” Shin was feeling more uncomfortable by the minute. He knew he had stepped on the reaper’s invisible tail but he had no idea what warranted this cold, casual demeanour. 

“Do you… want to watch episode 4?” The drama they were following had left off at the main lead’s first kiss, it was quite sweet.

“No. Let’s just go to bed.”

“This early?” Shin asked just as he placed the last of the dishes onto the rack. 

“Mhm.” Yeo gave him a light peck on the lips.  _ Oh, he was very eager to go to bed now.  _ “I’ll meet you there.”

In a puff of black smoke, Yeo disappeared, leaving a beaming goblin behind to finish up and head upstairs.

* * *

With an eager skip in his steps, Shin made his way towards his bedroom, remembering the last time they slept together and how his lover had been disgustingly adorable.

A drunken smile plastered on his face, he turned the doorknob and entered, oblivious to the room’s eerie emptiness.

Without warning, the goblin found himself firmly pinned to the wall, hands restrained by some unseen force. Yeo splayed his hands across his chest, shoving him back.

“What are you doing?!” the goblin yelped, the hard wall was not at all comfortable.

Yeo had responded with the grin of a cheshire cat before leaning forward and murmuring into Shin’s ears.

“Educating you a little about our relationship.”

“This is  _ not  _ how our relationship works. Not at all.” Shin had grumbled.

Humouring him, the shirtless reaper had stood back, hip cocked slightly, querying with an eyebrow raised. “And how  _ does  _ our relationship work exactly?”

“I said it before, I’ll say it again. I’m the assertive one and you’re the submissive one.” He said it so matter-of-factly Yeo’s composure waned, chuckling into the cool air. Shin enjoyed the sight of his lover’s lithe form vibrating from it.

“You do realise that relationships don’t always have rigid dynamics right? There’s no need to label.”

“What?”

Yeo sighed, it would be difficult to explain with words and honestly, speaking to him now was tiresome. He’d let his actions speak louder.

With graceful movements he cupped the goblin’s face in a firm grip, lips brushing. Shin attempted to push himself forwards to meet the other’s pink lips, only to be held back by Yeo’s unyielding grip.

“This isn’t any fun.”

“Sugar-high kids have more patience than you.”

Yeo proceeded to lick along the goblin’s jawline, causing him to hold his breath. Pleased with the current obedience his goblin was showing, Yeo trailed back to Shin’s red lips, nibbling his bottom lip slowly.

He would show Shin just what the nature of their relationship was.

Flicking his tongue, he tasted the insides of the goblin’s mouth. Shutting his eyes, Shin tried once more to push forward and deepen the kiss. However futile his attempts were, he did not want to give up.

“Uh uh, not yet.” Yeo blew gently onto the other’s wet lips, the coolness a contrast to the warmth just moments prior.

The reaper continued with his tongue, the cold tip of his nose occasionally prickling at Shin’s heated face. There was a controlled softness to the reaper’s attentions, how he seemed to appreciate the goblin’s unwilling acquiescence, body betraying will. It was unlike their previous throes of carnal passion and more alike the purity of their first time together. It was more  _ intimate _ somehow.

Yeo replaced his hold on the other with telekinesis, hands instead traversing downwards, lips ghosting over the other’s creamy neck and visible collarbone. With deft fingers, Yeo unbuttoned Shin’s mahogany top, tracing a finger from the goblin’s chest to crook of his pants. Shin shivered from both the light touches and the cool air on his skin. It was a foreign experience, the slowness and lightness of Yeo’s attention. He dragged his palms across Shin’s chest, leaning in and adding pressure to the kiss, teeth clicking as Shin fought weakly against his restraints to deepen the kiss. Just as the moon pulled the waves, the reaper entreated the other man to relinquish his ego for the moment.

Yeo’s fingers tugged Shin’s hair back, breaking the kiss and exposing his neck to the reapers lips. The pause was filled with Shin’s wheezing.

“Don’t move unless I say so, then I’ll decide if you’re allowed to. Alright?” It was an illusion of choice as Yeo gave the the goblin no opportunity to respond, nipping and purring at his jugular. Shin breathed a shaky exhale. It was different, being the one to receive the attention he usually dispensed. Even then, he doubted he was so obsessive with keeping control of Yeo’s reactions. He jolted from the sudden touch around his hips, gasping in tandem, finding the reaper’s hands slipping into his pants.

“Where is your mind drifting to now, hm?” Yeo hummed into the crook of the goblin’s neck, sending prickles of pleasure down his spine.

Feeling confident enough to speak without an obvious tremor to his voice, Shin rasped. “Just about how different this is from our usual dynamic.” Yeo gave a hearty chuckle at his honesty.

_ What is it usually like? _

The sudden intrusion in his mind was like caress, teasing and pleasant. He felt himself shiver against the cool wall. There wasn’t a gaping disparity between the feeling of the reaper’s light kisses or the tickle of his fingers with the telepathic inquiry. The tone of Yeo’s voice in his head echoed and Shin thought absently of lighthearted musicals in a distant age of civilisation. Yeo moved to strip Shin of his remaining clothes, letting them pool onto the floor, his lips never leaving the other for too long a time. 

“I’m usually the one doing the attending and you’re usually the mewling one.” Shin managed to gasp as he felt Yeo massage the small of his back, the front of their torsos brushing each other. 

_ How was Yeo still in his trousers? _

Yeo’s cheeks hollowed as he sucked on the nape of Shin’s neck, his head tilted sideways to expose himself to keen lips and sharp teeth. He inhaled the minty scent of Yeo’s shampoo, moaning into the dark room. Pleased at the sound, Yeo stroked up and down the side of the goblin’s hips, soft fingers caressing rough and scarred skin, making his way to palpate his behind. Shin tensed, back stiffening against the wall.

“Don’t tell me you still haven’t a clue about what I’m about to do.” Yeo’s lips twisted, disbelief on his pale face.  

“I- I- didn’t expect to be on the receiving end.” Shin felt his cheeks flush, that was an embarrassing confession if he ever heard one. Yeo gave him a tiny but genuine smile, eyes crinkling as he leaned forward and spoke lowly at Shin’s ears. “I hope I make a memorable first time for you then.” 

Shin attempted to quell his reluctance, a byproduct of his hubris, a shield to the unspoken fear of being expected of something. His sister, his family, his servants had all depended on his unflinching strength of will, but he failed to protect them all from a king who listened to a serpent’s poison. He had never been  _ allowed to  _ surrender, to flee from the fight, to run away from the responsibility. Parading either in armour or expensive tailor-made suits, there had been no shoulder to lean on, to  _ rest. _

“Shh. Quiet now, I have you.” The reaper’s hands traveled towards his groin, eliciting a strangled noise and the fluttering of his lashes. The pressure and  _ motion  _ was just enough to keep him from thinking about anything else, only the  _ feeling  _ of his body’s reactions to the tenderness of the other’s strokes. He attempted to calm the pounding of his heart, lungs shuddering just as Yeo nuzzled into his shoulder, whispering, “I have you, I have you.”

The goblin had forgotten, that opening his mind meant there were no secrets, nothing left unknown to the other. It was the surrender of his mind, his memory, his  _ entirety.  _ There was understanding in this rapport built on a shared bloody past, more importantly there was trust built from their confiding in each other. Yeo was here for him, reaching for him instead of the reverse all those years ago. Suddenly, resigning himself to the other meant more than simple wounded pride, the monotony of centuries no longer his own to bear.

“Just relax, I’ve got you.” Yeo pressed himself onto the other with languid kisses, removing his pants before rolling his hips, stiff members sliding against each other. Shin muffled his moans into Yeo’s shoulders, carnal desperation causing his limbs to twitch, demanding freedom and permission to move in tandem to the friction. Wrapping his hands around the other in a steadying embrace, Yeo carded his hands through curly locks, understanding of the other’s internal turmoil.

His sovereignty was not in the form of a title called king of Goryeo, but the accord between two supernatural beings. He would not betray his loved ones trust in him, never again. His actions were not of a conqueror but a seductionist, alluring the other into conceding, splaying steady arms to catch him.

Releasing his telekinetic hold on the goblin’s limbs, he pulled the goblin into a bruising kiss, the other’s hands scrabbling his back for purchase. This man was  _ his,  _ not because of a title but because of the trust built from a shared near-millenia of divine punishment weighing upon their shoulders.

_ His _ were the swollen lips of the goblin.  _ His  _ were the quivers travelling through the goblin’s body in pleasure.  _ His  _ were the breathless cries of his name. Yeo bore the other’s faith in himself, the goblin’s trusted owner. He felt his groin throb at the prospect.

_ You are  _ **_mine_ ** _.  _

The reaper rolled his hips, fingernails raking into a sinewy back, biting down onto the other’s shoulder. Shin felt blood roaring in his ears, chewing his lips to withhold his cries, it was almost too much to bear. 

Despite the ferocity he currently exuded, Yeo was still keeping him in the sensual breadth of time, teetering precariously from the well known end. There was a tense ache in his abdomen, one that the movement kept alive and sustained. Shin felt sweat dribbling down his skin, cool against hot skin, his body pressed into the wall firmly by Yeo’s lithe torso.   

“Calm down, it’ll be a long night.” Yeo implored, hips rolling in a steady rhythm.

“How- are-h you s-so calm?” Shin bit back a whimper, trying desperately to halt the quake in his voice. 

“I’m not, not really.”

Slicking his fingers with lube, Yeo lathered the gel unto the surrounding of Shin’s cleft, prodding experimentally. The goblin jerked, tensing at the touch, releasing a soft gasp in surprise. 

“It t-tickles.” He admitted sheepishly, shying away from the reaper’s dark gaze.

“I’ll go slow.”

Shin hooked his legs around the reaper’s waist, steadying himself as Yeo inserted the tip of his finger experimentally before inching deeper. Shin felt pleasure mixed with pain travel up his back, holding his breath in attempt to relax. The intrusion was more uncomfortable than he had imagined. With his teeth clenched and eyes clamped shut he let out only a soft hiss.

“Relax, it hurts even if you've felt it before. Tell me if it's too much to bear.” Yeo said seriously before he placed gentle kisses on flushed cheeks. 

“I didn't- expect it t-to feel quite like this.” Shin managed to stutter out, shoulders tense as he attempted to accustom use himself to the feeling. He felt, rather than saw, the others’ slight reluctance to continue. He wasn't exactly reacting how Yeo wanted him to outwardly, simply because he was preoccupied with the sensations firing up his neurons. It did hurt, but so did the time he found out about Yeo's past life.

Here they were now, alive and well.

He quieted Yeo's rising doubts with a gentle roll of his hips, gasping at the friction. It stung, but pain was a familiar friend. This was different, it was not the sharp pain of arrows piercing his armour, it was not the burning agony of a sword tearing through his skin like paper, it was not the throb of a sword driven through his chest. He shivered as he nuzzled into the reaper’s shoulder, this was a far cry from it.

The reaper responded with the grinding of his hips, capturing the other in a deep kiss as a sign of gratitude, a wordless promise that he would make the night one to remember. His fingers scissored and stretched the goblin’s tight heat, faster now with the reassurance that he was doing right.

So much had gone wrong in the past, he had sinned so greatly. He was a killer, the fact had not changed even after he lost his memory, became a reaper, a lover. He had once boasted in front of Deok Hwa, his powers of foresight, precognition. Finding forgiveness and love from the one he had wronged so greatly, was unexpected. It was an enigma. Somehow, he had found it in himself to forgive himself for being a victim of a parent who spewed lie after lie. The goblin hadn’t lied, he didn’t care about what he did or who he was in his previous life, the present him was what the Goblin had wanted Wang Yeo to be and that was enough.

In the stasis that was immortality, he had found a bond that could withstand the torrent of time. It was  _ precious. _

Shin moaned, tremors running through his muscles as he plead for more. The room was too stuffy, too warm. He felt like he was melting from the touch, body pliant and loose, floating in the steady thrums of pleasure running up his front and back as Yeo pressed down upon him, hands steady underneath him.

Their breaths hitched when Yeo finally pushed into the warm and wet entrance achingly slow. The reaper’s jaws clenched, swallowing saliva down his throat. Tenderly, he settled himself into the goblin, peppering sloppy kisses wherever he could reach, stomach tightening in anticipation at the mewls he had never heard before released from his lover’s lips. Shin was malleable, vulnerable, lungs heaving even before he had even begun to move. He had never seen the goblin so helpless, oozing desperation and want. It was becoming nigh impossible to withstand the animalistic impulse to buck. 

He persevered however, making light, shallow thrusts as he held up Shin’s weight from his thighs. He wanted this night to last. The other man was slumped against him, burying his face into the reaper’s neck, eyes tightly shut. Yeo could feel the slight tickle on his skin as he would plant his lips to stifle his cries. He kept a slow and steady rhythm, arching his hips upwards to meet flesh, their heartbeats in sync. 

The goblin felt himself bobbing up and down slightly to the force, letting the reaper do as he so pleased. He wasn’t coherent enough to move, letting the delicious friction overtake his senses, gasping heady breaths.

“You’re too close, calm down.”

“You’re j-just making fun of-f me.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

Yeo scrunched his face in distaste, “Why are you so childish?”. Shin laughed into the dark, hooking his chin on the other’s shoulders. His chest vibrated against the reaper’s, sending tingles that travelled downwards. “You’re just as childish.” The goblin pulled himself up, using the pale man’s shoulders as a brace, before letting gravity take over. It wrenched a strangled noise from the reaper just as Shin’s lashes fluttered. They returned to the previous pace, now with Shin’s help to pull out further and gravity’s aid to sink deeper.

Shin felt the beads of sweat trickling down Yeo’s back, tensing and relaxing with every thrust, he ran his hands along the creases in flesh. His partner was grunting from the effort, knees close to buckling from the pleasure. The reaper was shuddering where he stood, trying to regulate the frequency of his thrusts. Shin was being terribly impatient and Yeo understood the feeling. He knew however, that the process towards the sure end, the journey there, was the true height of the experience. He wanted to prolong it as much as he could. The goblin’s moans and cries were a delightful melody to his ears and enough for him to stray away from escalating just yet.

As gracefully as he could, he carried Shin unto the bed, the mattress dipping from their combined weight and movement. He lapped at the other’s map of scars on his chest, his shaft throbbing inside of the gobin with every shiver and yelp he elicited. It was filthy, the sound of wet skin meeting skin, the lecherous mewls mingled with his own panting. 

“T-this is absolute t-torture.” Shin was dangerously close, unable to pull back from the peak of the cliff. 

“It feels good though, yes?” Yeo purred before nibbling his earlobe.

The goblin grumbled, face turned into the sheets, still retaining that bit of childish pride that was irremovable from his core and a part of his charm. Yeo, indignant, changed the angle of his thrusts, prying a sharp cry from the goblin’s lips. He winced and froze as Shin tightened around him, chest heaving and eyebrows pinched together. 

“P-please do that again.” The sight of Shin with tears in his eyes, begging to be shagged made him twitch bodily. He was stubborn and cruel though.

“No. Not yet.”

The goblin whined and whimpered, out of character in the heat of the moment. “ _ Please.” _

“No.” The reaper restarted the steady roll of his hips, now angling at the other’s prostate, relishing the clenching around him every time he did.

“Please. I’ll do the laundry for a week.”

“No.”

“A month.”

“No.”

“Two months.”

“No.”

“Three?”

Yeo responded by growling, forcefully plunging his tongue into the other’s mouth just as his hips bucked. He devoured the shocked yelps and subsequent screams tearing from the other’s throat. He had wanted the moment to be longer but they were immortal and time was no threat. There would be another time to have more finesse, more control over himself and the other.

Yeo’s muscles flexed as Shin’s legs straddled his waist, the bed rocking to the force and frequency of the thrusts. Inwardly, Yeo cursed the goblin for destroying his then already weakening resolve. Shin was struggling for breath and squirming for more friction, to sink down further. Loud and lewd noises of skin slapping skin permeated the night air, Yeo vibrating from the labour.

“You asked for this.” He snarled before biting down onto the Shin’s neck and shoulders, plunging into the other as his hands raked down the Goblin’s chest and settling around his groin. Shin was a sweaty sobbing mess, whimpering incoherently as Yeo coordinated the pull of the goblin’s member with the thrust of his hips. He clung to the reaper, fingers clawing into his back, jaws slack and head turned upward. He strained his neck muscles, letting out wail after wail.

He had not known this ferocity in the usually docile reaper. Where was the sensitive man who looked like a kicked puppy? Regardless, his current tenacity was relieving and unbelievably sexy. He could feel himself being impaled just as Yeo’s soft hands tugged with force that did not match up with his physical appearance. Shin shuddered, unable to move except for the snapping of hips that crushed him onto the bed.

He screamed as he saw stars in his eyes, body arching into a bow as he came. Yeo thrusted into the heat, following close. He muffled his own moans into the mattress as his body spasmed, hips riding out the last of the throes of passion.

Falling into a panting, sweaty heap, they held each other and exchanged messy kisses, too exhausted for anything but dreamless sleep.

* * *

When the birds began to chirp and the sunlight filter through the curtains, Shin had mumbled into the room.

“Everywhere is sore. I haven’t felt this sore since, well, never.”

“You’re still going to have to do the laundry for next three months.”

The goblin held a pillow down onto the reaper’s face in attempts to suffocate him.

 

-end-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked that dragged out smut. If it wasn't sexy enough, you'll have to pardon my writing skills. This is my third time writing smut in the 19 years of my life. Feels like it improved from the last time I wrote it in Everlasting Love. The ending is kinda abrupt because I don't how much you can drag out of thrusting motions lol. I'm also no fan of reading oral sex so yeah, none of that. 
> 
> Up next I think I'll either write about Yeo and the people around him or Shin+Yeo's budding relationship in the 30 years post Eun Tak. Heh.
> 
> I also hope to see someone pull off an Eun Tak/Sunny fic, with Eun Tak aged up a bit I suppose. Honestly, part of me died when this female-female relationship wasn't explored further in the show. It was so beautiful and the two of them teaching each other new things? Gosh it was such a great relationship. Goblin would have been revolutionary if it was Shin/Yeo and Sunny/Eun Tak but that's just me.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this!


	6. White Noise and the Punctuation of Sound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shin has the habit of conversing to his house to make it feel less empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shin centric for once. I've explored Yeo's character quite a bit, thought I'd look into the Goblin's. 
> 
> References to starvation, depression, suicide attempts and PTSD from wars. 
> 
> Honestly, how this went was not how I wanted it to go. my brain is just foggy with uni stuff and sleepiness. Hope you enjoy it regardless.

His eyelids are heavy, lashes crusts with dried blood, cornea dry and rough as he blinks. He wakes up to a buckwheat field, the stench of rotten meat and blood clinging onto him. In his chest is the sword that was driven through him in what seemed like an hour ago, the rust and moss on his breath plate tells him otherwise.

He feels ancient, bones weary and feet heavy. Weaving through the bright green and yellow field, his figure is out of place, his mind wandering to gore and cruelty. His rage bleeds crimson, blue flames licking the jagged edges of his armour.

Lungs expanding and deflating (it is unnatural to be breathing, the blade is just there), he enters the king's quarters, the blade tip dragged along the wooden floor. It is in animalistic fury that he swings downward, slashing with the finesse of a child soldier at the eunuch. It brings him dark pleasure to find his last expression being one of surprise and fear.

The body wrapped and placed on an altar mocks him, the gold embroidery of the king’s emblem burns into his mind. The goblin’s insides churn with unrest, it is not the same, a death dealt by one’s own hands instead of the one that had been wronged.

“I was too late.”

There is no one to see off the dead king, only the eunuch now lain at his feet, blood seeping into the floor and body going into rigor mortis. There are no flowers or offerings of incense as seen in the funerals conducted by peasants, their simplicity had some semblance of intimacy that Shin had always admired and found absent in the granduer of nobility’s funeral processions. He remembers the predecessor of the late king, his dying wishes for Kim Shin to protect Wang Yeo, right before he is buried into a lonely rock chamber. Amidst the haze of his anger, the pain of betrayal and failure make itself known.

With a deep breath, Shin summons a few joss sticks and lights them with blue goblin fire, taking a deep bow before his king. The room is empty, not a living soul to hear his speak.

“Goodbye, my majesty.”

* * *

 In his shabby new home, stocked with firewood and rice for the winter, Shin sits with his back ramrod straight, ink brush moving across the paper with grace. He writes the first of many entries of his days as a goblin, his young servant flitting about in the background, worrying for winter, happy for finding friendly neighbours, constantly moving and doing.   
Shin feels as if he is in stasis, there is only the daily routine of writing, of breathing.

Sometimes, when the young servant leaves his presence in chase of a girl he fancies, to a drink with a friend or even in search of better jobs, Shin speaks out loud to the empty house. Usually, it is about the weather, occasionally it is just the narration of his diary entries.

“It’s rainy today.”

The pitter patter of rain outside the window is unending but even then, his servant runs about, the villagers toil, the children play.

Only he is stuck, speaking to the four walls around him.

* * *

 In the midst of grieving for his family, soldiers and servants, he experiments. His servant, now a father, scolds constantly, his voice a pleasant noise in Shin’s ears.

“Master, you must stop doing this! It will do no good for the villagers to know you are a goblin!”

His servant has a life outside the house, he does not. So the goblin plays with blue fire, pyrotechnics singing the occasional wood furniture. Sometimes he moves the items about, scaring villagers with the prospect of a ghost haunting them. Once, he even lifted the house off the ground.

Angered by his silence, his servant stomps off to his family, his life. With a sad smile, the goblin whispers to no one.

“It’s quiet here again.”

* * *

 

With his servant’s wife pregnant, he has the house to himself.

The quiet of the night is punctuated by gasps and wails. In his time as general, it had been common to give comfort to younger recruits who were louder in their night terrors. War fetters, the condition was called. As the soldiers grew older and saw more blood and death, they learned to break down in quiet.

As Shin shivered on his thin bed, cold sweat slicking his body, ears ringing from the clang of metal against metal, he felt his ability to remain quiet falter. Twitching, tossing and turning, he remembers the battlefield strewn with bodies, horses and weapons.

The stench of rotting meat filters through the thin masks they pulled over their noses, the blood sticking to their armour and skin. The adrenalin in their veins made their hearts race, blood rushing to their ears, exhaustion creeping like a terrible premonition. He can hear the horses neighing in fright, the screams of men hacked, the crunch of bones when men and horses trampled. The squelch of the mud under his boots mix with the sounds of flesh and metal meeting.

Worst of all is the fear that they will lose, that his guard will slip and he will come crashing down to gasp in the bloody mud, dying from a bleeding wound or even the trampling of his own men.

He does not sleep.

Shin whispers to the dark, “Please let me forget.”

* * *

 

One thing that immortality has granted him is the chance to comfort those alive, to make a difference to humans, bring miracles.

It is the gift that comes part and parcel with the punishment.

His servant’s son weeps for his father by the burial grounds. The goblin wraps his hands around his next servant, a firm hug. He is this boy’s miracle, his tutor in difficult times. Wartime bred few teachers and even less students. Work is scarce and the price of food high.

As his newest servant juggles the difficulties with the gifts of his father and his master, Shin smiles to the house.

“The least I can do is this.”

* * *

 

He travels, now and then, through doors to distant places around the world.

Regardless of where he goes, he feels like a relic, a remnant of an old and distant time and place, outliving humanity as they progressed, grew, lived and died.

Nearing his 110th year his young servant is now an old man. He finds himself playing servant instead, flipping his servant to his other side to avoid bed sores, bringing cooled porridge to chapped lips.

When he speaks aloud to the house in this man’s presence, it is akin to speaking to no one.

“Have some water.”

* * *

With the second servant he says goodbye to and expresses thanks, Shin feels the days bleed into the next, morning and night have little meaning.

He lies in bed, eyes vacant, body still. There is nothing to get up for except to quell his new servant’s worries. His bones protruded, his clothes hang off him, his skin is papery to the touch. Shin starves himself, forgetting meals and the routines of life. He smells like the homeless beggars on the streets, haunting his house with the gauntness of his features. Regardless of his emaciation, he finds the blade still glowing bright in his chest, keeping him on the precipice of death. The aches and pains starvation brings coupled with divine punishment make it torturous to exist but he finds himself uncaring of how the rest of his immortality progresses.

He is the shell of a once great general.

It is during his servant’s early death that guilts him into feeding himself more regularly, to getting up and doing something, now the guardian of his servant’s only child. He gives himself to the child, working to bring food to the table, to clothe him and house him. The only thing he cannot give is his love.  
  
The child knew, even if he was in hearing distance, his master’s words were not for his ears. They were the words of a madman.

“This cannot be how I live. It cannot.”

* * *

 God, lacking in understanding of mortality, granted one select mortal immortality with his memories intact. It had been a punishment meant to teach, to enlighten his child.

He had sorely miscalculated.

As the years flit by, he saw the goblin throw himself into all sorts of situations. His previous century spent doing nothing had now devolved into terrible action.

Shin threw himself into alcohol, getting drunk out of his wits. Searching for early invented drugs to abuse and crash into the floor, comatose. He had desperate flings with mortals, rejecting their feelings when they had even a semblance of actual romantic interest. (it was to spare them from the pain)

The goblin was suddenly into the prospect of doing something. Even if that something was unhealthy for mortal minds, body and soul.

Before, there had been the disappointment of his late king’s succumbing to suicide causing inaction. Now, there was only understanding.

He had leapt from cliffs, jumped into oceans, slit his wrists, stabbed himself, shot himself (when the gun was invented). The list of activities he attempted were endless but all led to the same original situation.

He would be back in his house, whole and healthy as he was when he was general, not a wrinkle on his forehead, not a scar more than what he had before. The was no evidence of anything he had done, only the memories’ tearing his mind into shreds.

He screamed and yelled and shouted-

Cursing the gods for placing the noose around his neck and leaving him to pull and pull but without the hope of ever getting the job done.

* * *

 

His servant would leave trays of food outside his door, frowning to the continuous string of pleas come from the goblin’s mouth,

“pleaseletmediepleaseletmediepleaseletmedie-”

There was nothing he could do because he knew from experience, how only his death could breathe a semblance of life back into the goblin, a break in his master’s pain-tinged madness.

* * *

 

Every servant’s death was like a splash of ice water, both hot and cool. The pain scorched his senses, the cold pulled his skin. It woke him up from his reverie of pain despite its predictability. His servant was mortal after all.

There was only the monotony of immortality, punctuated by his servant’s coming and going.

Shin felt like crumbling, the weight of his memories pressing down upon him. They were inescapable, an endless torment that played within his mind.

He found himself reciting it to a house that changed from the times, modernising but still echoing from loneliness. With a drunken sardonic grin on his lips, the recycling of past conversations would commence.

“It’s quiet here again.”

* * *

 When the Grim Reaper invaded his house, he found it becoming a home.

There was the tedium of the years, but there is the unexpected thrum of his heart at the prospect of sharing it with someone who understood.

Shin felt the tremble of his muscles, the beating of his heart, the creeping of hope into his mind. It had been a long time since he had felt alive.

There was no need to wait for death, to wait for them to leave, to grieve for this person. He was so  _tired_ of mourning.

He had been soldiering through life, this man felt like a reprieve, a shoulder to share the burden of time with.

There was melancholy, madness and mania. There was also the comfort empathy brought. 

“I love you.”

 

-end-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Shin's punishment is heartbreaking. Which is why episode 16 is like, so god damn frustrating. UGH. Damn this ending. Wtf. Shin doesn't deserve this waiting shit. 
> 
> I might come round to edit this. My initial idea was quite different haha. Also, all the ficlets in this series may not be the same Shin and Yeo, as in when they fall in love may be shifted here and there with different functions. I'll write something for the 30 years after Eun Tak dies sometime in the future. Rn, I'm focusing on the fic idea of Yeo and Sunny and the burden of memories being returned. (Im pouring all my knowledge abt telepathy from other fandoms into this hahaaha it's no wonder all my fics are so twisted.) 
> 
> Im kind of eh abt this chapter. The idea was sound but the execution? Less than how I wanted it to be honestly.


	7. Feelings are Complicated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reaper wants to leave the mansion. The goblin, to his surprise, has a different reaction to the news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something lighthearted and short after the darkness of the previous chap haha. Will be going for some dark themes in the future so, savour the awkward, emotionally constipated and adorable dorks whilst you still can. (I'm joking, I'm not that cruel, I'll do a mixture lol)
> 
> Hope you enjoy their silliness!

He doesn't want to name what it is he is feeling. To give it a name is to acknowledge he is feeling that way. The deceased couple before him are not helping.

“Who was that lady on your phone? Tell me now you unfaithful old man!”

“What about you? You hag! You've been meeting some guy behind my back with all the texts on your phone!”

The reaper could feel himself twitching like a ticking time bomb. The couple's bickering remind him of _someone_ , a someone who is currently going out on a disgustingly cliché date to the movies.

He doesn't feel like Eun Tak doesn't deserve it, she's _his_ responsibility and she is one of the few humans he believes deserves _everything_ good in life. If she had been someone else's girlfriend, he would have scoured the office cabinet in heaven and rifled through their files. If anyone dared to make _his_ missing soul’s smile falter, it would be disastrous on his reputation for deciding to let her stay on the mortal plane.

No reaper left a soul unattended for no good reason, if his colleagues found out said soul was miserable he'd be labeled as a heartless messenger of death. There was no fondness between them, none at all.

The couple seated before him have no idea that they've actually been texting to each other on a different online alias. Their current argument was instigated by unfounded reasons for jealousy and envy.

They were giving him a headache.

“Enough! Just drink the tea and get out of my tea shop!”

Shoving their way to the door, they made a hasty retreat from the agitated reaper. The grim reaper continued with his routine of cleaning tea cups and tea pots, dreading the prospect of returning home earlier than the couple in his home. Really, there wasn't anything to it. He just felt a burning itch on the insides of his stomach every time the troublesome couple giggled in front of him.

He was feeling jealous. There, that was the name of his current affliction. The appalling concept of human _envy_ and he was vibrating from it.

Feeling extremely pissed off at the fact, he trudged out the tea shop, disappearing in a puff of black smog.

Thankfully, the mansion was empty. Even Deok Hwa felt overwhelmed by the goblin couple, unlikely for the same reasons as himself.

 _Why_ and _how_ and _when_ did his accursed heart betray his rationality? He was feeling bitter over a _human_ dating a _goblin_. They were all touched by the gods in some way but other than that they were too different. He could feel the same way to a human, to another reaper. There was no reason for him to feel this way for a goblin, absolutely not.

Nope. Not Shin’s understanding reflected in his eyes when he slept over, not their bickering that often led to laughter bubbling unbidden, definitely not their weekly beer nights and comforting conversations that warmed his heart. There was no reason for him to _want_.

He _hated_ how the Goblin's smile and laughter made his heart pound and face flush red. It was just a bodily reaction, pure nature thrumming through his veins.

Even if the goblin had given him a hug and actually acknowledged a silly reaper's concerns about his past identity, there was no reason for him to yearn for more camaraderie, companionship and comfort.

He was different from the rest of the reapers. He trembled sometimes, worrying and wondering who he used to be, what sin he committed, whether it made him a monster to the people around him. Did he do something so terrible he should never touch or speak to another person? The burning desire was unbearable amidst colleagues who deflected his 300 year old anxiety. How could they not want to know? The goblin and his bride had been concerned enough to give words of comfort but only Shin had the ability to empathise with him completely. He was tormented by lost memories, the other was tormented from not being able to forget them. They were like moon and planet, orbiting each other in their shared experience of purgatory.

The goblin made his heart flutter excitedly, his lips curl into a genuine smile, his eyes crinkle with childish glee. It had been so long since anything had made him feel quite like this. If ever he had. There was a purity to his emotions despite the concern and fear that there would be nothing more than this between them. It was _enough_ for the reaper, he was a dog lapping up the newfound affection Shin so easily gave out, the desperation of his pathetic soul shrivelling at the goblin’s small, kind and meaningful gestures.

_I don’t care about your past life, I’ll hate you just the same._

Shin didn’t _need_ him, didn’t need any more than what they little currently had.

He smiled and cried in his time as a reaper, definitely, but it was different; the tears he spilled during their heart to hearts, the laughter that came with little effort.

It was embarrassing and absolutely wretched to have these feelings when his _friend_ , one of few, was clearly happy with Shin. From the laughter echoing through the living area, he seemed happy too. The reaper was a wedge between them and he did not want to be a _traitor_. The word tore through his soul badly, dredging up unexplained emotions.

The reaper was an outsider. He should return to his true self, the routine of loneliness he had been following for three long centuries. He should butcher the ties he had now and spare himself further pain from the illusion of rapport.

“What are you doing you vile creation of God?”

“Here's the tenancy agreement I signed for Deok Hwa.”

“Wha-”

“I'm leaving. You can have the house back. Good luck. With the sword. Don't make Eun Tak cry. Scold Deok Hwa for me. Hang up the laundry on your own. There's still some fruit in the fridge, don't let it spoil.”

“What do you mean you're leaving?!”

The reaper was well versed with dramas. As the person leaving, he was to turn around and exit dramatically. He would have to shut his ears to person B’s choked sobs and walk away. That was how goodbyes went, with finality.

What he had not expected was Shin’s fist colliding into his nose painfully. He barely registered the blood gushing out of his nostrils as he fell on his back, dazed eyes staring into confused and hurt ones. Shin straddled him, fists bunching up the reapers coat and shaking roughly.

“Who are you and what have you done to the reaper?!” the shrillness of his voice reflected his growing panic, forcefully yanking at the other man for explanation.

“What the fu-” The reaper was just beginning to snap out of the dizziness of his head, blinking rapidly to make sense of the situation.

“You’re leaving?! You can’t be leaving!? You don’t just leave!? You-” By this point, Shin was hyperventilating, breaths unsteady and grip loosening with the intensity of his trembling. The reaper could only stare in shock.

The goblin was breaking down into a panicked ramble, barely pausing for breath, cold sweat slicking his forehead and dripping off the tip of his nose.

“You don’t just _leave_ \- You can’t- You just don’t-”

The reaper had witnessed panic attacks before, in humans just before they died. It wasn’t a pleasant task bringing those people to heaven’s doors, their mental torment was imprinted onto their souls. With gentle hands he removed the goblin’s loose hold on his jacket, whispering firmly for the other to inhale and exhale slowly.

“You are alright. You are here. In the mansion. With Eun Tak. With me. It’s alright.” The brevity of his sentences brought the goblin a semblance of calm, enough for the reaper to manoeuvre Shin off of him. He sat up to continue the string of assurances.

“You’re here. I’m here. Eun Tak is here. We are here.”

As his hearbeat slowed and calmed, the goblin felt tears run down his face, pitiful sobs wracking his frame as he let the reaper hold him awkwardly. The reaper’s facade of calm began to fade with the attack, distress now plain on his features at the goblin’s confusing tears. Why was he a sobbing mess? It was a sticky, awkward hug. The reaper's blood had crusted up at the edges but not completely, leaving him with a stuffy nose. Shin was crying unintelligibly, snot and tears mixed together as he rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. It was disgusting but the reaper himself wasn’t exactly prim and proper either.

He knew, deep down, that it wasn’t an appropriate time to laugh at the snivelling goblin. But to hell with it, he wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to make fun of the goblin’s sensitivity. He knew tact, he just didn’t quite have enough of it to be a decent friend at the moment.

That was how he got another punch in the face, nursing a sore jaw and cut lip. He retaliated with his own fists despite the slightness of his stature against the goblin’s. The goblin was unfazed whilst Shin's face remained flawless. Peeved, the reaper scowled. He wasn’t some past general plus he didn’t have the appetite of a bull. He was competitive to every end so he tugged at the goblin's ears and hair painfully, hissing like a grumpy cat. The scuffle just left the two of them panting for breath, bruises and cuts littering their faces, sprawled over the living room floor side by side.

“Why did you break out crying like a baby?”

“Why did you say you were leaving?”

“Touche.”

“Tsk. You punch like a girl.”

“That’s not an offense at all.”

“Why aren’t you leaving?! Why am I not letting you leave?!” The goblin’s nose twitched with annoyance.

“I really should but you’d start crying again and forming the next amazon river in South Korea.”

“You- You- Urgh- You poophead!” The reaper felt laughter bubbling out of his throat, an uncontrollable sound bursting forth like lava erupting from a volcano. It was Shin’s turn to fluster, agitated by the other man’s laughter at his expense.

“Are you done? Because I need to clean up your blood off my knuckles.”

Sobering, the reaper retorted, “You should clean off the mucus oozing out your nostrils first, you stinky goblin.”

“Just, don’t say stuff like that out of the blue again.”

“Should I send you doves like the olden days?”

“No you idiot. You need to do it in person. Just remodel your ugly face before you do.”

“You should consider cosmetic surgery for yourself too.”

Without another word, the two men went their separate ways into their own rooms. The lease contract blotched and ruined by snot, blood and sweat, laid forgotten on the floor.

 

 

-end-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> For clarification, Shin's reacting this way because he didn't see it coming at all. He has foresight and stuff but it doesn't really tell him much useful stuff in the drama. Regardless, he's used to expecting things to leave, reaper wasn't supposed to leave till like until his contract ends at least. Haha poor clueless child. Yeo is just as stupid, he should get his head out of dramas haha!


	8. Fluffy Bunnies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deok Hwa has to sleep over at the mansion because of Secretary Kim. He loses his sanity in the process. (NSFW)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just something silly to embarrass myself. God, I'm in too deep, this pairing has taken over my life.
> 
> I've read fics that make explore Deok Hwa's angst. So I'm going to torture him in a different way. Poor Deok Hwa. I promise I'll write something to do him justice in the future haha. For now, enjoy through his suffering! This is pure crack amidst all the angst.

Yoo Deok Hwa was intelligent, resourceful if need be. There was no entrepreneurial feat he couldn't pull off if he set his mind to it.

Unfortunately, Secretary Kim didn't appreciate his flash sale of some old property under the company's assets. Consequently, he was effectively homeless at the moment. Him, the heir to one of the biggest corporations in South Korea.

As usual, his uncle had merely laughed at his expense, once again telling him he deserved whatever he got. The rest of the house's residents weren't sympathetic either, citing the fact that he was still staying in a huge mansion. Eun Tak had laughed at him before tossing spare pillows and blankets at him. The reaper had merely given him a look that made his insides churl uncomfortably, he wasn't that big of a disappointment to humanity, was he? At least his uncle tenant had passed him some towels and toiletries, he had nothing on him but the keys to a home he no longer owned.

To his dread, his uncle had a price to his charity. He was to play maid until Secretary Kim gave him back his access to the luxurious hotel room he used to call his home. One of the few tasks was to cleanup every room in the monstrous mansion. That was how the young heir found himself in the reaper's bedroom, mop in hand.

He was in the bathroom for a quick relief session when the bedroom door slammed open and footsteps pierced the previous silence. Uncle tenant was back and if he found out his troublesome landlord had used his bathroom without permission, he would have his head. Given his uncle tenant was a Grim Reaper, it wasn't an empty threat.

Thus, Deok Hwa made what he thought was the safest tactical decision, to hide in the toilet and wait for an opportune moment to escape.

With his hands over his mouth he peeked through the creak of the door, only to have the image of his uncle eating his uncle tenant's face burn into his retinas.

Swallowing the squawk of surprise he flinched backwards, shutting the bathroom door and leaning against it. Thankfully, his uncles weren't nude, just extremely engrossed in their… activity.

Deok Hwa cursed his curious adolescent self for looking up all sorts of lecherous online media, the fuel of his current vivid imagination. His uncles weren't exactly quiet.

He knew they were together but he never expected to be trapped to actually witness or hear them going at it. This was a whole new brand of torture. His uncle, who was a five year old at heart, had been nipping and licking at his uncle tenant's jawline, neck and shoulders, fingers pulling off the reaper's usual overcoat.

Judging by the mewls filtering through the bathroom door, his uncle tenant was thoroughly enjoying the attention.

Deok Hwa felt himself sliding down the door and curling into a tight ball of shame. How was he going to escape this hell? Shoving his palms to his ears and shutting his eyes tight he attempted to mute the sharp gasps and gutteral moans coming from his uncles. They did little to help, his imagination wandered just from a glimpse of the action, the sounds cutting through the thin walls.

“You enjoy this position don't you? Helpless like a doll.”

The young heir could hear the shuffling of the quilt, the slight creak of the bed from the weight and movement. God, he had to get out while it was still PG13. Crawling on his knees he peeked from the crook of the door, the bathroom was frustratingly close to the bed but far from the exit.

Deok Hwa tried to think of cute fluffy bunnies whilst his uncle, thankfully still clothed and blocking out most of the youth’s view of the Grim Reaper, was sprawled all over his uncle tenant. Fluffy bunnies, not uncle’s low growls, not uncle tenant’s whimpers. Fluffy bunnies. Bunnies. Rabbits. Breed like rabbits.

He hated himself for watching animal documentaries.

On all fours, the company heir stooped his head out of the tiny opening, barely enough space for his shoulders to fit through. He was making progress, albeit slowly in fear he be found out. He did not want others to know he had been in such a predicament.

“Ah!”

With a slight jump, Deok Hwa withdrew back into the toilet like a scared tortoise fleeing into its shell. Yeo’s yelp had startled him back to square one. Just what was his uncle doing- NO.  
He was not going down that train of thought. Even if his brain had gigabytes of visual and auditory data and was currently running every video with his uncles’ faces instead of the actors.

He regrets very much having sold off some of the company’s assets on a whim. In the toilet, with tears in his eyes, Deok Hwa swears never to piss off secretary Kim again.

“You’re still so tight.”

Ah, so that’s what his uncle is doing to uncle tenant. Nope. Deok Hwa pummels his fists into his forehead, cursing his neuron’s for supplying him with the information faster than his rationality can stop it.

Fingering. Definition: Sexual foreplay to stimulate the vulva, vagina or anus. In this case, stimulation of his uncle tenant’s prostate in preparations for his uncle’s-

Stop. No. Absolutely not. Deok Hwa feel’s his brain cells being corrupted, previously glorious memories now tainted with familiar faces. The reaper’s pleading voice isn’t helping.

“Shin- please- I- please- mhngh-”

His uncle’s chuckle filters into his ear drums. They were once tied to his uncle’s childish tempers and sarcasm. Now they are tied to an image of his uncle enjoying the whimpers and moans of a docile reaper. Deok Hwa fears he will never be able to sleep peacefully ever again.

_How is it even possible to hear them sucking the breaths out of each other’s lips through the door?!_

Hugging his legs and bracing himself for the upcoming torture, Deok Hwa mourned for his sanity. He would need all the flowers he could get for his grave.

“You’re so wet and hot- guh- you feel so good-” His uncle was grunting and hissing.

“Nnh-hah-!” His uncle tenant was gasping and moaning.

Through it all Deok Hwa could hear the filthy noise of wet skin making contact with wet skin, the goblin and reaper’s breaths becoming louder and more irregular by the second. Grabbing the towels available, Deok Hwa wrapped himself in them, an unhelpful shock blanket.

Finally, after the cries, grunts, whimpers, moans, pants, shrieks and screams, Shin trod to the bathroom to clean up, clad in nothing but his open blouse.

“YAGH! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!” The goblin had screamed in fright at the near-comatose young man on the floor, buried in fluffy white towels. Shin hurriedly yanked off the shower blinds to cover himself whilst Deok Hwa whispered monotonously with vacant eyes.

“I’ve seen too much already…”

“What?!”

With a sharp wail, Deok Hwa leapt out of the small hill of towels and made a mad dash to the bedroom door, his previous lifelessness making a 180 degrees turn. His uncle tenant’s yell of his name trailed after him but he was adamant on disappearing from the face of the earth.

He never wanted to stay over again.

 

  
-end-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super cracky shit I hope at least made you laugh a little. Poor Deok Hwa. HAHAHA.
> 
> I keep seeing great new authors feed this pairing tag. They write Shinx Yeo so beautifully I cannot even, I admire them so much. But my brain makes me write crack like this???? Someone please fix my brain for me. Haha. 
> 
> Current fics I'm working on/planning to work on (not necessarily for this series though):  
> 1) Shin shares about his past lovers and partners. *  
> 2) Sunny and Yeo talk about memory and its invasive nature.  
> 3) Shin and Yeo crumble under the weight of millenia. (Idk abt this one, it's a very dark AU where the two of them become codependent and it's just bad bad bad) *  
> 4) Sunny x Eun Tak. Hell yes fem slash. Aged up bby girl tho. AU thing.  
> 5) POLyAMory. I saw Eun Tak x Yeo on twitter and I ???? What. GUH. (This one is a big big big maybe)  
> 6) Shin and Yeo discuss about intimacy and how they both struggle with it for different reasons. *  
> 7) Shin and Yeo post Eun Tak's death and how the 30 years allow them to heal. *  
> 8) Shin, post everyone leaving him. He tries to be happy for the happiness he received. But waiting is hard.  
> 9) Eun Tak and Yeo talk about parents and parenthood. (AU where Shin and Yeo adopt some kid and things from the past get dredged up)
> 
> In between there'll be random short drabbles on themes. Just exercises for me to improve in my writing lmao. Throw prompts at me.
> 
> I realise now I can't really make up AUs that destroy all of the canon material, it's just too important a detail that the reaper is Wang Yeo etc. There are so many juicy bits to dig into! You can tell I think about these characters a lot. Hngh. I totes don't mind mermaid AU fanart though. The korean artists on twitter are a blessing to this teeny fandom.
> 
> I might be busy because UNI is starting but I hope to dish out more junk before I get busy haha. It's fun to write with characters not my own, great practice I think. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed my trash!


	9. Desideratum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shin and Yeo share about past lovers, partners and the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically Yeo listening to Shin talk about all the relationships he's had with humans in his almost millennia of existence as a goblin. Yeo's past relationships in 300 years will be discussed too. It is my headcanon that reaper's can touch one another without seeing past lives. I have several alternate versions of the characters in the drama in my head lol, each varying in angst levels. 
> 
> 900 years and 300 years are a really really long time. 
> 
> Discussions of suicide, sex, self harm, drugs and alcohol. 
> 
> Desideratum: something for which desire is felt

They could be anywhere in the world but they chose the buckwheat field Shin's body was left to rot in. It was supposed to be his final resting ground and indeed, the green and yellow flowers belayed the bloody and terrible deed done all those years ago. The isolated field was the backdrop for the two men huddled together on the bench, shoulders leaning into each other, noses tinged red from the night chill.

“This place is nice.”

Shin let out an honest chuckle, a can of beer in one of his hands, the other clasping Yeo's. The underside of his palm was rough and scarred, a contrast to the silky softness of the reaper's skin.

“I've kept it like this for nine centuries.”

“Why?”

“I wanted something to stay the same. For something from the past to remain as it was.” The goblin had never been poetic but the emotion laden in those two sentences made Yeo's heart clench. For himself, there was the everlasting work death brought, the routine of brewing tea and reading cards. For Shin, there was the tending to his buckwheat garden, an unchanged relic from his past to accompany him in his lonely immortality.

Yeo reached across the goblin, pulling the shared bottle of beer into his own fingertips before taking a sip. The alcohol warmed his insides, enough to withstand the springtime cold. He was here, now, with Shin. They were each others’ anchor in the torrent of time, the blazing hearth to keep each other company against the blistering winter called loneliness.

Despite the now and the future, there was the then.

The terrible _before_.

“I’ve never told this to anyone but I feel like you should know.” Shin's eyes were distant, their emptiness akin to the abyss. Yeo felt himself drowning in them whilst Shin had already sunk. Only the Goblin's grip on his hand told him Shin wasn't lost, that he hadn't fallen into the dark pits and stayed. The reaper could only hold onto him tightly, a reminder that neither of them were alone, not anymore.

“Before you, before Eun Tak, I had many relationships, flings, romances. When I was general, there wasn't any chance for family, for anyone.”

Kim Shin was weighed down by responsibility, duty and love to his king. He was married to wars and the scars they left on body and in mind. He was leashed to exhaustion and fear of death and failure.

No one could give themselves to a man who did not even own himself.

“I thought it was God's gift, the chance to find someone, settle down maybe. Have kids. See them grow up. ”

“Start living the life I didn't let you?” Wang Yeo had driven a sword through his most trustworthy general, only to have driven it through himself as well. It was his fault the both of them were cursed, forgiving himself was difficult even if Shin already did. With just that little bit of assurance, he knew he could in the future, hope blooming in his heart.

“Yeah. It wasn’t purely your decision though, remember that.” Shin heaved a sigh, releasing a puff of vapour. “I didn’t know then, that I was granted immortality.”

The newly revived general had traveled with his faithful servant to distant lands by ship. His first wife had been an innkeeper, genuine concern shining in her eyes as she took in his disheveled appearance and granted them asylum from the weather.

“She was so kind. She didn’t have a lot but she gave it anyway. She didn’t ask for me to explain, she just cared. I didn’t know she would grow old and sick while I had to suffer in good health.”

With painful hacks and coughs, she had passed on with cruel agony in her lungs, the biting cold creating aches in her joints. In her last moments, she had been incoherent in her pain, saliva dribbling down the edges of her lips and unto the pillow beneath her. Shin discovered then, he could stop time. It served only to remind him that he was an outsider, his wife’s wrinkled features paused in the midst of a pained grimace. He had been with her to the end, seeing her march up heaven’s steps, sad but hopeful for reincarnation.

“I- I- loved her so much. But she had to move on, I couldn’t.” His tears twinkled, travelling languidly down his cheeks. Yeo closed his own eyes, sending her lover’s past lover thanks for keeping him company, even if only for that brief moment.

“We had one daughter. I named her after my sister. She had a happy ending, she found a good husband and I became a blessed grandfather of three scoundrels. They made fun of my eyes, saying they were funny looking.” Shin had turned to the reaper, those very eyes crinkled in a sad smile. The both of them shared a short chuckle.

“They were right, it is funny.”

“Stop it, your eyebrows are as bushy as a squirrel’s tail.”

“Your hair sure smells like one.”

“Hey, you’re ruining the moment.” Yeo grinned into the kiss on Shin’s cheek, right under the eye. The small affectionate gestures were received with gratitude, Shin felt the difficult words pour out slowly but surely.

“Things weren’t so good after that. My grandchildren soon had grandchildren and my family had grown so much we couldn’t all stay together anymore. I lived with the youngest son of every generation, the rest had other things to do, other places to see, other people to meet. I couldn’t protect any of them, it just wasn’t possible.”

As the family tree grew, so did the distance and the internal disputes. Shin found himself segregated, as would happen between people of different generations. There was also the problem of inheritance. Just what was inheritance from an undying but unwilling goblin who could summon gold at a whim? Wars, famine, disease also plagued the past, Shin found himself unable to shield everyone from everything. He couldn’t stop them from going about their own lives.

The only times he could actually follow them were when they stopped moving and breathing, only a grave to mark their existence and presence in his lifetime.

“I began to lose contact with some of them after the fourth generation. The only people that stayed by my side were the Yoo family, duty bound to serve me regardless of the generation.”

“Deok Hwa loved you. I’m sure Chairman Yoo did too.”

“I know. Every version of my servant had their own brand of showing me their love I suppose. Some kept a distance, some were like Deok Hwa. Sometimes, it wasn’t what I needed at the time. Just as they realised, they would have to leave the mortal plane, their knowledge of me wiped from their memories. I was expunged and left to only exist in a few people’s memories, as a fictional character to some, as a myth to others. Only my servant and his family were privy to my identity by then.”

“You lost your ties to your blood family.”

“Yes.”

Yeo shifted in his seat and asked earnestly.

“Is there any way to-”

“No, I’ve tried. I’m just a mythical creature now to all of my existing relatives. It was like this 500 years ago. I’m alright about it now. They’ve got their lives to live, I have mine.” Shin wrapped his arm around the reaper’s shoulders, pulling him closer. He inhaled the smell of fruit and honey that lingered on the reaper, the scent had come to mean home.

“What about the in-between?”

Shin’s eyes darkened. Yeo could feel the goblin’s pulse quicken from his wrists, muscles tensing. At moments like this, his superior senses blessed him with information on how the conversation was running.

Right now, it seemed he was touching on something uncomfortable.

“You don’t have to tell me yet if it’s that upsetting.” With a furrowed brow, Yeo had leaned back into the bench, the weight of his time as a reaper pressing down on his body. Shin seemed somewhat relieved for the temporary reprieve. The story would be told, in time.

“I had some people too.” Shin caressed the reaper’s hand with his thumb, rubbing soothing circles into pale flesh.

“They were all grim reapers like myself since I wasn’t allowed to meddle in human lives nor reveal myself to anyone. It would be difficult anyway, I can’t touch any human. Sunny was the first exception because of the past life and history we shared.”

“Who were they?”

There had been assignments that required more reapers. Through these, Yeo met a few Reaper Kim’s that could make him laugh, make him forget about their dreary job scope for a little while, make his face blush red.

It was difficult however, to be reminded of your own predicament through the face of another.

“We were all sinners without names and memories. I could appreciate their company, the occasional fling, the touch we weren’t allowed to have with any human. But it was difficult to love someone that reminded me of my own turmoil.”

Yeo had wanted to know his past, the other reapers had been fine with their ignorance of the past. They thought it was best to let lay what had forgone and move on with their tasks as reapers. To be happy as messengers of death, signing the name Kim on every official document.

He could not. Just when he thought she was the one, he was the one, they were the one, again he would be met with someone who was alright as they were.

“I did love you and Kim Sun all those years ago, I loved you all so much. I never showed it in the way I should have. I was too spineless, too weak, too afraid. I couldn’t- wouldn’t let myself forget I was to be punished. To not receive any more love until I learned to give it.”

“You’re here, now, with me. We had Sunny and Eun Tak and Deok Hwa. They will return to us, we just need to wait.”

Yeo rested his head on Shin’s shoulders. What the goblin had helped him with was to face the past together. It was true, the sword had pierced both his heart and his general’s, imprisoning them in centuries of suffering. It was fate to remove it together and to finally find comfort in each other.

Shin took the last sips of beer before settling it by his side. He swallowed. Yeo braced himself.

“There was a time that was darker than most. I wasn’t  _alive_. I fell and I fell hard.”

The goblin had let himself whither in the loneliness, ghosts of dead loved ones haunting his mind, his own death plaguing his spirit. He had wanted to die as he witnessed people he cared about leave him, forget him. He couldn’t bare to foresee their futures, shutting himself off from the world.

“I contemplated it all the time. Killing myself.”

Yeo feels his insides twinge at the word _kill_. Indeed, it is a word laden with sadness, agony and despair. He understood. When the memories had invaded his mind, so had the bitterness, the self-loathing and the desolation. When Shin had pinned him to the wall by the neck, it was the past king’s emotions mixed with the reaper’s newfound perspective fueling his request for Shin to kill him. It would be poetic justice, his past self had thought.

Suicide was a sin because it meant that the love bestowed upon a person was wasted. Just like how Kim Sun’s sacrifice became a meaningless death in the face of Wang Yeo poisoning himself. Sometimes however, humans were purely reactive, feelings overriding every rational thought.

It was how Wang Yeo had been so easily convinced that his general had to die, paranoia thrumming through his nerves.

It was how Wang Yeo had become enraged at his wife and general’s betrayal.

It was how Wang Yeo decided the pain and regret was too much and there was only escape.

“I once told you how you wasted my sister’s, my soldiers, my servants and my own death. I have to face what I said, I was a hypocrite. I had wanted to die too, even if I knew that I could move on with my immortality, be as blissfully unaware as the rest of your reapers. I couldn’t. I didn’t think of the reasons I should live.”

“You didn’t have the debt of other people’s lives on your soul, only the weight of the people you cared about dying.”

“I did though, I slaughtered enemy soldiers like animals. I would be lying if I told you I had remorse for them in the past. I cut down young soldiers blindly, to prove to you and the whole of Joseon that my sense of duty was genuine. Kim Sun would have wanted me to live a good immortal life. My first wife would have wanted me to be happy.”

“You were following orders then.”

“If I were following orders, I would have embedded the sword into my chest myself.”

The reaper remained unconvinced. Shin’s punishment although it granted him the chance to forgive himself, was an unfair dealing of god. The almighty sided with Yeo, just as Shin had growled a long time ago.

“It was too much. Everything was too much and I just- broke.”

Yeo pulled Shin onto his chest, rocking him gently as tears fell onto his sweater.

“Nothing worked. I tried pulling the sword but there was only a terrible ache. I tried leaping from bridges into fast waters. I tried shooting myself. I tried jumping off a cliff. Nothing could kill me and all I would return to was the same old, same old.”

The dam of hurt burst and Yeo attempted to piece what was left, his own tears falling onto the goblin’s hair. He would hold him and pray for peace, just as Shin had wished his king peace in the afterlife all those years ago. They had each other to cushion the descent into the dark terrors of the past.

“It _hurt_. Worst of all, I couldn’t do anything.”

Shin had attempted at death but it eluded him. He had attempted inactivity, locking himself into the pits of despair, unmoving from his bed despite the gnawing of starvation in his stomach, the roughness of his throat, the exhaustion that he wore in his emaciation.

“I only survived because of my servant. He needed me at times when his own life didn’t take him away from me. I was still mad though, sick in the mind, thinking about what I could try next until I gave up on trying entirely.”

The goblin had resorted to even darker means of traipsing as if his soul was alive. Drinking into oblivion, inhaling narcotics to escape reality, pulling out his hair to find it grown back when he awoke on the bloody floor.

“I never got any new scars. I would just wake up, whole and hale like I was when I was general.”

Yeo understood. He had tried it before. Experiments as to how long it took for his wounds to reseal, no trace of it ever existing minutes ago. There was always the letters with red names though, to pull him away from it.

“I threw myself into all sorts of affairs. I don’t even remember some of their faces.”

Egon Schiele was an artist during Expressionist period in Vienna, cursed to death from birth from a sexually transmitted disease his father had passed down to him. He had explored the human ego in his grotesquely sexualised paintings, participating in all sorts of sexual endeavours as some twisted attempt to fool himself into believing he was not a dead man.

“Not all of them were just people for me to surrender myself. I did find myself loving some of them. Those were a precious few.”

Shin saw pity in their blue, emerald, chocolate coloured eyes. They held the desire to take ownership of his sorrow, to be the balm he had longed for. He could not let them though, there was only so much they could offer before their physical bodies betrayed their will and left Shin with one more grave to visit, one my crack in his already broken heart.

“None of them needed me for as long as I needed them.”

With gentle hands, Yeo pulled up Shin’s face by his chin, pressing a light kiss on his lips before whispering.

“I’m here. I need you. I love you.”

Shin had been able to close the ancient chapter of his life with meeting this person. He had the comfort of his warmth in the present. He was given the chance, the hope, for a tomorrow with this person.

“I love you too.”

 

 

 

-end-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ending was kind of eh. Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> Might come round to edit this. I need sleep hngh.


	10. To Lay the Past to Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eun Tak and Yeo talk about parents and parenthood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deeper exploration of something from Everlasting Love. Essentially, Shin and Yeo are Eun Tak’s son’s godfathers but the topic of child care dredges up some things from Eun Tak’s and Yeo’s pasts. 
> 
> References to child abuse, neglect and emotional manipulation.

She uses whatever her mother did as a guide to raise her own son in the beginning, with a little help from Sunny and her friend Kim Yoo Na, her ex-class president. It was difficult but at least she had something to refer to. She knew how she should read bedtime stories at night, make hot soups when her kids got sick, play with her kids when she had the time.

As her son grew into a teen however, it became foreign territory. He was mischievous and rebellious, galavanting to who knows where at some godly hour.

She was worried for him but she had no idea what to do. Scold him? Beat him? Eun Tak found herself in a pickle, the only reference for discipline she had was her aunt. She had known it for what it was a long time ago and it was the last thing she wanted for her son.

Her aunt was a terrible role model for parenting. She’d do better. If only she knew how.

It had been a blessing, that Yeo had so much advice to dispense to her. They sounded well-grounded and her kids’ childhood had gone mostly alright. Yeo had given her advice on taking care of teens as well. She hadn’t realised that threatening the Wi-Fi or allowance could be a form of discipline. She had never had the luxury during her adolescence.

This led to the question of how. How did Wang Yeo the _grim reaper_ of all people know a thing about parenting?

“I was curious, after Sunny got pregnant. I consulted a few pediatricians, child care specialists and mothers prior to their passing. If I was to be of any help, I would need to know what to do.”

Eun Tak had laughed at his reply, pulling him into a hug as a sign of thanks. It was typical, how Yeo would secretly attempt to help his loved ones.

“Hey Eun Tak, that's my seat!” the goblin had yelled while he waved a spatula, dressed in a kitchen apron. Eun Tak's daughter was flitting about her favourite Godfather, donning a tiny chef's hat Sunny had given to her as a present and sunglasses she had 'borrowed' from Deok Hwa.

“Get back to cooking you idiot, we're starving.”

Yeo poured Eun Tak a cup of fruit juice, the alcohol would come when the kids were either glued to the television or tucked away in bed.

“Sunny is on the way with some fried chicken and potato salad.”

“Okay Mr Event Organiser.” Giggling, Eun Tak took the proffered drink, settling into comfortable silence.

It was nice, to be able to relax amongst her loved ones. Her job was hectic no doubt, parenthood was equally taxing. At least she had somewhere to return to, shoulders to lean on if she ever felt overwhelmed. She had a family, both by blood and by choice. It had been what she had longed for for 10 years of her adolescence and finally gotten after much turmoil.

She felt content.

“Did you… ever believe you’d be this happy _after_?” Yeo had queried with his gaze turned towards the living area, staring into the past with glassy eyes.

The _after_.

After her mother died, after she moved in with her aunt and cousin, after she was subjected to both physical and verbal abuse, after she was neglected and after she felt hopeless even as she put on a facade of cheer.

It had been dark, those days where she would cry into a thin mattress, bruises on her biceps, mind replaying the derogatory words her aunt, cousin, teacher and classmates would spew onto her.

Eun Tak, looking back, could only answer honestly.

“No, I didn’t.”

It was easy to proclaim yourself a water lily, immune to the water and mud underneath. It was harder to believe full heartedly when you were drowning, the river flooding as your shoot could not grow fast enough.

Yeo had turned to her, body tense with indecisiveness between giving her space or a reassuring hug. Eun Tak answered it for him, draping an arm around his neck and resting her head on his shoulder.

“You guys, the boss, my husband, my kids, made me realise that it was possible, to actually get out of the mud. To hope again, for a family, for love.” She felt the reaper relax, letting himself accept the warm embrace.

They were alike in history, Eun Tak knew none of the details of Wang Yeo’s childhood but she was good at discerning things. It was easy to piece together why Park Joong Heon had so easily manipulated the king into various terrible decrees for execution. When he had accompanied her to the temple to light incense for her mother, he had seen the urn her mother’s ashes were stored in next to the pictures and trinkets.

_“Is it possible… for me to set up a space for my… my father? Even if I don’t have anything from him?”_

It had been their shared secret then, Shin and Sunny could never truly understand nor accept it, even if piety was ingrained to their beings from the past. Filial piety was albeit different, Eun Tak found herself bringing flowers for her aunt’s urn even if her cousins did not. It was a formal farewell, to put the past hurt to rest.

She understood the pain of having someone meant to love you unconditionally betray that trust.

“Did you believe you could be this happy after everything?”

“Wang Yeo the king didn’t, the grim reaper before he found family was trying to, I think I do now.”

They had spoken before, cried into each other’s arms, mourning their respective childhoods.

Eun Tak was scared of broken plates and bowls, they were a reminder of her aunt’s fits of rage. She was afraid of becoming her aunt, now with children of her own. Sometimes, she would wake up at night, fearing that everything was just a pleasant dream and that she had was still in the nightmare of beatings and hurtful words. Her aunt’s screams of her stupidity, her uselessness still echoed in the recesses of her mind, coming forth when she faced a tough time with work or family.

Yeo too, feared that the eunuch’s grasp on his mind had not relented despite his death, that his influence had been so great it had warped the reaper’s personal integrity. It was difficult sometimes, to hide the flinch from the sudden touches Shin, Eun Tak and Sunny would give him. It was difficult to look at himself in the mirror, past bruises long faded but the phantasmic feeling of his father’s lashings would not go away. His father’s words still rang in his ears, how he had to be worthy of kingship, how he had to kill to remain on the throne and useful to his father.

Their guardians had not had their best interests in mind. That was true.

Despite that, they had still found family and love. That was also true.

“Let’s go help Shin with the veggies and fruit, you know how he always neglects them for the meat.”

“Mm. He’s an idiot.”

 

-end-

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked this short chap. I'll write about Shin and Yeo babysitting in the future, just had to get this out first. I don't like introducing OCs to fics, so idk how I'll get around writing Shin and Yeo as parents haha. Flamie has written a fic with Eun Tak as a 9yo and it's adorable ;-; 
> 
> I want to write fluff but I'm dry of ideas atm, just shoot. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	11. Interlude of Doodles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a bunch of sketches I'll add here because I can't post it anywhere else besides tumblr.
> 
> Some NSFW stuff down below :^)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bahaha these dorks. I'll update this whenever I have new stuff.
> 
> My tumblr: kechk. tumblr. com

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone chop off my hand pls ;-;


	12. Fluffy Cottoncandy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bunch of super short fluffy scenarios.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been writing a lot of angsty Shin and Yeo, my drawings made me realise these dorks would be fluffy af as well. It’s also my birthday so I decided to write something light hearted! Yas, I’m 19! Wrote this in one seating so there are bound to be mistakes and eh-ish parts.
> 
> On another note, I adore the fact that Shin and Yeo kind of and not really fit the trope of opposites attract haha. Like Naruto and Sasuke (Bad example but yeah you get me). I would love to see more flustered Shin haha, all the fanart on twitter (go look for someone called bosal_05, their artwork is gorgeous!) portray him as a sharp, cool and “dangerous” man and Yeo as the whimpering prey. Which I will say is totally sexy and all but not how I would imagine their relationship works hahahaha Shin is a silly dork as well, never forget that people! They balance each other off haha, they’re both equally sensitive, equally rude, equally competitive. 
> 
> I’ll write about jealous/flustered Shin in the near future haha. Enough rant.
> 
> Some of these were based of tumblr prompts that I altered a bit.
> 
> Enjoy!

Yeo decided to pick up drawing and painting again. It had been a childhood hobby turned dark coping mechanism when he was king. Now, he had decided that whatever ties the act had were unimportant.

He would relish the calm and simple joy of mark-making on paper.

It also amused him greatly when Shin would huff and puff, complaining about the doodles all over his favourite books and notebooks.

“This is not your sketchbook!”

Shin did not look the part but Yeo knew he was a sentimental sap. He wrote poetry in leather bound books! The reaper had thought it appropriate to use them as his sketchbook, adding tiny illustrations to them.

The goblin would complain but secretly, he enjoyed the additions to his book. They matched the tone of his poems, resonating with the songs his heart sang. 

* * *

 

“Could you get up for a second, I need to pee really badly.”

“Mngnh.”

“Get off me you lazy cat.”

Yeo shifted to curl up at Shin's chest, clinging tightly to his pajamas like a koala to a tree. He purred contentedly, it was warm and comfy, he wasn't going to get up and lose the cosy position.

“I need to go, get off me!”

It would have been easy to push off the reaper if he wasn’t clinging onto Shin like an oversized baby. It wasn’t that the goblin disliked the cuddling, Yeo’s weight on his chest made him feel fuzzy all around. His bladder didn’t sync with his heart’s demands though.

“Get off me or you’ll be sleeping on a wet bed!”

The goblin had tried to peel off Yeo’s grip to no avail. How was the reaper’s eyes still shut when Shin was panting from the effort to get rid of him?!

In the end, Shin had taken 20 minutes to get up and replace Yeo’s hold onto him with a pillow. After he absent-mindedly pulled the blanket over the other man, he finally made it to the bathroom to relieve his screaming bladder.

Why did he have to suffer like this for the rest of eternity?

* * *

 

Shin snores in his sleep. It isn’t overly loud, the noise was just constant and in the early beginning of their relationship, Yeo had found it impossible to sleep with. He had tried ear plugs, pillows, blankets. Nothing worked as he would toss and turn during the night whilst Shin slept soundly.

“Can you find something to like block out your nose and mouth at night? You sound like a rusty trumpet!!”  
  
The goblin had ignored him mostly, only half-heartedly searching for solutions. He enjoyed Yeo’s flustering in the morning, the unhappy pout of his lips. It was adorable. Yeo didn’t lose too much sleep though, this Shin knew for all the complaints that spewed from the reaper’s mouth.

By early in the morning, Yeo would be sound asleep, already soft breaths muffled by the pillow and comforter, the slight rise and fall of his chest hardly making a rustle. Shin would lie on his side, admiring the reaper’s peaceful features, caressing dark curls before lulling himself back to sleep with his arms around the other.

Frustrated one night and feeling less forbearing, Yeo had wrapped Shin into the blankets like a burrito before kicking him off the bed. The reaper got up to roll the other into another room and retrieve spare blankets.

Shin woke up to Eun Tak’s phone camera staring down at him, her giggles reaching his eardrums as he wiggled like a caterpillar trying to get out of its cocoon. He swore, the reaper was so damned petty!

* * *

 

It was a secret he revealed to no one because if anyone knew, they would call him a hypocrite.

Yeo snuck to the kitchen late at night sometimes for a snack, stealing either Shin, Eun Tak or Deok Hwa’s junk food.

Before he met them, he had been ridiculously health conscious. It wasn’t just the fact that majority of humans died from lifestyle diseases that made him so, he was picky with the food he ate, opting to cook his own meals than undergo the torture that was ordering with specifications. Waiters that knew him found it exhausting to take down all the details of his orders.

Despite all that, when Eun Tak had offered him some of her chocolate and strawberry wafers, the processed food had bound him into a spell. By day, he would outwardly object to his friends’ consumption of such foods, spieling data about the amount of sugar, salt and trans fat in them.

By night, he was a racoon, picking out a few of Eun Tak’s potato chips, a few of Deok Hwa’s oreos, a few spoons of Shin’s tub of ice cream.

His ransacking of the other inhabitant’s food went unnoticed until one night Shin caught him red handed, the tub of ice cream still cradled in his lap, spoon drooping from his lips.

“You! You’re the one who has been stealing our snacks!”  
  
Yeo fled the scene with a black puff of smoke, laughter and ice cream on his lips. The goblin’s look of shock and anger had been hilarious.

* * *

 

Shin adored dogs. And cats. And birds. And any other domestic pet he could get his hands on.

“What is that behind you.”

Yeo, being the clean freak he was, did not.

“I picked them up from a dumpster nearby. They were shivering from the cold.” Behind him was a box of kittens with eyes too big for their tiny heads.

The reaper had kept a tally in his head, the number of times he’d acquiesced to the goblin’s puppy eyes. It was his greatest weakness and Shin’s favourite weapon to get whatever he wanted. That was how the mansion was occasionally filled with the sound of puppies yapping, kitten crying and parrots squawking.

“Clean up after your own pets you stinky goblin!”

Shin brought them home but it was usually the reaper who did the feeding and cleaning. The animals became Yeo’s silent ears, listening to his rambles and rants about the goblin’s lack of responsibility and unhygienic lifestyle.

“He could at least help with feeding you, can’t he? Rembrandt?”

It baffled Yeo why Shin had decided to name majority of his pets after famous artists and poets. It was ridiculously pompous to name a parrot Edgar Allan Poe just because it spoke well.

“Hello! Hello! I love you! I love you! Hello!” The parrots and cockatiels would squawk back at him. In return, he fed them fresh sunflower seeds, their company more bearable than the goblin’s most of the time.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

When Yeo had stopped by the pet store for some bird seed, he found himself enamoured by the ball pythons that cuddled into themselves as their names suggested. Shin had screamed in terror at the sight of it. Yeo had laughed evilly, threatening Edgar Allan Poe if Shin continued to forego his responsibilities as pet owner.

“Her name is Banana.”

Thus, the pets they had in the mansion were named after fruits and famous dead artists.

* * *

 

Eun Tak had told them that she was going out with a bunch of new friends she’d made in Uni. It was to a club.

Shin and Yeo had fretted over her, wanting to set curfews and whatnot.

“I’ll be fine! I won’t come home smashed oh my god.”

“Not too late either!” Shin had also supplied as Yeo wrapped her favourite red scarf around her neck tidily. Eun Tak grumbled about how she was going out to the club with it all because it was cold and Yeo didn’t want her to get the sniffles.

“Don’t follow me there like creepy parents okay?”

Shin and Yeo had resolved to staying up late to wait for Eun Tak’s return.

Unlike other days, they were exhausted. Yeo had had a bunch of assignments, hurrying from one soul to another, Shin had accompanied him to help however he could.

It was difficult staying awake.

“Oi, get up.” Yeo had slapped Shin in the cheeks as the goblin slouched forward, sore muscles weighing him down. One soul had refused to go through the doors until their buried savings were dug up for their children. Even with his abilities as a goblin, it had been hardwork.

“Have some coffee.” Yeo shoved the terrible drink into the goblin’s hands, prompting him to take it. The reaper had hoped the caffeine would stave of their need for sleep.

“Hey, you’re falling off the sofa.” Shin had shaken Yeo awake, pulling him from the edge of the extremely soft, comfortable and warm sofa.

Resorting to extreme measures, the two of them decided to watch horror movies to scare themselves awake, their will to stay conscious was greater than the fear for jumpscares and clowns and gore.

“What time is it already?”

“12:37PM.”

The two of them were stubborn however, deciding to stroll the sidewalk with unsteady feet and drooping eyelids, hoping the cold would keep them conscious. When they returned home, they were too tired to teleport through the doors and too sleepy to remember the passcode. Huddling into each other at the steps for warmth, they fell asleep.

“What are you guys doing outside?!”

Eun Tak had laughed at the saliva dried on the corners of their lips, their disheveled outer coats and bleary eyes.

“I messaged you guys that I was staying over at a friend’s place!”

They had forgotten how to access messages through the phone that night.

* * *

There was a rumour that Deok Hwa was meeting up with some girl one day.

Shin and Yeo had wanted to investigate, opting to stalk after the young heir, hiding themselves in corners and open rooms. Currently, they were in the girl’s office building, men and women in formal wear scowling at the two who clearly should have caught security’s attentions already.

“Hide! He’s turning around!”

They had squeezed themselves into a tiny janitor’s closet. Shin had to hold in his laughter at the sight of Yeo’s new hair attachments from the mop, muffling his cry of pain as the reaper jabbed him in the stomach.

“This place is so tiny I can barely breathe! Stop using up my oxygen you old man!” Yeo had shoved his palm onto Shin’s face to move towards the door and check if the coast was clear. Why he agreed to do this with the goblin, he had no idea.

“If I can’t make myself disappear, you can’t wear the hat on this merry excursion.”

Stupid goblin.

Forgetting they could teleport out of the confined space, the jammed door forced them unbearably close.

“Get your hands off me!”

“I don’t exactly have anywhere to put them!”

When they’d gotten out, it had been because the janitor had come for supplies. Shin and Yeo’s faces had flustered into a deep red hue, what they did in the span of time they were trapped was innocent, contrary to the janitor’s dirty thoughts.

There had been a lot of awkward shoving and grumbling between the two of them, both too embarrassed in the situation to do anything but make the other blush.

* * *

 

When Eun Tak first moved in, Shin had slept over in the Reaper’s bedroom. The reaper had taken the bed and Shin the nearby sofa.

The second time they slept over was when Chairman Yoo and Deok Hwa had stayed over. The chairman had taken Shin’s room whilst the three men had huddled in the reaper’s bedroom.

“I’m taking the sofa!” The young heir had pounced onto the sofa, leaving the reaper and goblin arguing over sleeping arrangements and cursing the protective young heir. (Deok Hwa had placed a bunch of kisses all over the sofa). There weren’t any spare mattresses either.

That was how the two of them had found themselves in the same bed, a wall of pillows built between them for “privacy”.

The next morning Deok Hwa had taken a picture of crumbled pillow wall, the two men sleeping soundly, tangled in each other’s arms.

* * *

 The goblin thought that the way the reaper made salads was adorable.

He’d stare from afar, how Yeo prepared the ingredients and cooked by the stove. The way he made salads amused the goblin the most though.

Shin could hardly restrain the laughter from bubbling from his throat whenever Yeo splashed the rocket leaves and iceberg lettuce with Worcestershire sauce. The way Yeo flailed the spatula brought tears to Shin’s eyes, it was a terribly silly trait the reaper had.

* * *

Yeo never told Shin about how funny his “Goryeo hairstyle” actually looked.

He had past memories of it but the image of the current goblin with long hair just made him want to explode in laughter.

It wasn’t that it was hideous or anything. The image of Shin in trendy and expensive coats with his long disheveled hair just seemed ridiculous. Also, Yeo liked the goblin’s shorter hair, it was silky and smooth to card through with his fingers, soft and fluffy to pet.

Whenever Shin fell asleep on his lap, Yeo enjoyed the feeling of his short hair under his palms, patting the goblin to sleep.

* * *

 

Sometimes, they would make each other breakfast.

Shin knew Yeo liked his fruits sliced and not whole.

Yeo knew Shin liked his cereal with chocolate milk and not regular milk.

They knew they both liked the same yogurt drink in the morning.

 

-end-

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, just some fluffy junk. Hope you enjoyed the happy children ahahah :P These two are so dorky i love them.
> 
> Currently working on a longer chap that’s an au of L_o’s fic idea. Shin is reincarnated and Yeo is still a reaper. It’s long hngh and I have uni work now haha. 
> 
> Some other fic ideas (Not all of them are shippy fics):  
> 1 )Shin understands time differently from other people. An exploration into the goblin’s ability to predict the future and the many goblin “brides” he meets. (Non-ship fic, kind of meta-fic. Shin shows mercy to several humans in his lifetime and meets many goblin brides essentially.)  
> 2)Shin and Yeo discuss about intimacy and how they both struggle with it for different reasons. ANGST   
> 3) Yeo and his memories returning. (Chap 2 of The agreement between Themis and Eleos)  
> 4) Finding out the reaper is Wang Yeo, Shin feels himself burning with fury. Both of them sit on the boundary that divides life and death. (nsfw? Idk yet lol Shin being angry at Yeo makes me sad)  
> 5) Shin and Yeo discover children. (This one is so cute and fluffy in my brain)  
> 6) Didn’t we agree to be rude? NSFW ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
> 7) Yeo finds the goblin’s mannerisms odd of late. (Yeo is an oblivious dork and Shin is a stupid dork)


	13. Laughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some moments of laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear to god, the only motivation i need to write is a few artworks on twitter and AMVs on youtube. I really shouldn’t deviate from the long list of fics I made lol. I’m trying to improve my writing so you’ll see me experimenting and agonising on words longer lol. This is really short haha
> 
> The next fic will be a NSFW one because I just thought of the right scenario HAHA I want to write flustered Yeo. Thereafter will be the super long ass fic with reincarnated Shin and reaper Yeo. 
> 
> One of these scenarios were based of an artist on twitter’s ridiculously adorable short comic. Link in the end note.

The buckwheat flowers and stems brushed his cold fingertips, caressing his clothes, both flitting toward and away from him shyly as he strolled through them. These flowers had been Shin’s intended resting grounds, had been them for the few years Wang Yeo decided nothing was worth waking up to anymore.

Coming to terms with what he had done to the people he loved seemed impossible yet Shin loves him regardless. It was unpredictable, the human propensity to follow heart rather than mind.

The ties he had with Shin were bedewed with blood (the sword, the arrow), forged in hellfire (mayhap literally when he experienced agony in the netherworld) and woven with moments of solace, calm and happiness.

Sweetness was dependant on the prior bitterness on the tongue. Happiness was dependant on sorrow to be so keenly felt. The midway however, is not blandness nor apathy but a small window for which a stronger bond could be built.

He is grateful to have found the opportunity to repay the love given to him, to give back more than he had taken. To whom he should thank, he has no idea. He has no religion. Thus, Yeo thanked the flowers around him for accompanying Shin when he did not in those lonely years, running his hands through their lush leaves and tall stalks.

“There you are!” The buckwheat behind him rustled loudly, parting way for the animated goblin. Yeo had expected himself to be found and pulled home to hot vegetable stew, another pot disproportionately filled with more meat than the fibrous stuff.

He hadn’t expected to be tackled into the field, Shin’s nose touching his, arms wrapped tight around his torso, the goblin’s hair a curtain against the green reaching up towards the darkening sky.

The corners of Shin’s eyes crinkled, dark orbs twinkling with amusement, lips quirking into his trademark grin. Yeo felt his heart lighten near-instantly, the snow that blanketed his thoughts thawed into spring dew, green and yellow grasses and flowers peppered the expanse of his conscious, the sun enveloping everything in warmth.

“What have you been up to here?”

Shin was the sun, Yeo the moon, their polarities crafted kinship. The grim reaper was caught orbiting the other on a path drawn ages ago and would still be travelled on years from now. It was meant to last and meant to be.

“I can hear you you know, you’re so corny. You have no talent for poetry nor writing.”

“Says the person who has books upon books of his own poems. Some translated into other languages in fact. For whom I wonder.”

“Definitely not for your girly eyes.”

Shin laughed softly at Yeo’s pout, secretly agreeing to every word he had heard.

* * *

Clouds heavy with rain crowded the sky like a flock of black sheep, blanketing the city in gloom. Yeo had moved with purposeful strides, finding the goblin seated at their usual haunt for chats.

“It’s going to rain.”

“Mhm.”

Shin was attempting to fix a popped button on his coat, inexperienced fingers struggling with the fine needlework required. Transfixed by his task, he did not notice the other’s frown.

“The sky’s really dark.”

“Yeah.”

The goblin was brought out of his trance when pale hands pulled his face upwards and onto soft lips. Yeo nibbled at his bottom lip before kissing with more force and passion, tongue tickling at the insides of Shin’s mouth. Shin was confused but leaned into the sudden contact, arms moving to wrap around the other and pull him closer when the pitter patter of rain filled his ears.

Yeo released him and stood abruptly, leaving him breathless and dazed, coat and sewing needle laid forgotten on the floor.

Staring out the window and the downpour Yeo whispered “Ah, so it wasn’t you.” Shin’s exasperated scrunching of his brow, huff of disbelief and flustered cheeks made the reaper giggle, pleased with the natural rain in Seoul. 

* * *

 

The creak of the door announced his return.The crickets in the garden permeated the silence with their songs as Yeo made his way to bed. “I'm home.” He whispered to no one in hearing vicinity. At least, not to human ears.

Curiously, there was no reply.

Removing his coat and hanging his hat, he threaded into the bedroom softly, finding the Goblin sprawled on his chair. The book he had been reading was splayed underneath his chin, collecting the drool that trickled from the corner of his lips. Shin seemed to have slept for sometime already, shoulders relaxed and body pressed into the cushion of the reading chair.

It wasn't an ideal position to sleep in, he'd wake up with a sore back slumped like that for the rest of the night.

Picking up the book and leaving it on the table, Yeo proceeded to peel back the blanket and puff up the pillows. Folding his sleeves, Yeo tucked his arms underneath Shins legs and back, heaving the other with great effort. If Shin was awake, Yeo would be hearing all sorts of insults to his feebleness and diet.

The distance between the chair and the bed was thankfully short, and soon the Goblin was tucked underneath the warm quilt. Yeo tiptoed to the toilet to change and get ready for bed, slipping under the covers when he was finally in his pajamas.

“Welcome home.”

Shin breathed out, voice low and hazed from half-consciousness, eyes half-open peering at the reaper’s tired features.

“Mm.”

As Yeo’s eyes fluttered shut, Shin reached out to pull the other into a cuddle, the reaper curling into the heat the other exuded. Just before he slipped into a world of blissful dreams, Yeo felt the vibrations of Shin’s chest from his chuckles.

“Your hair tickles.”

The reaper responded with a slight shake of his head, hair brushing the underside of Shin’s jaw before snickering at the goblin’s huff of laughter.

There would be more time to laugh in the morning.

-end-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I watched the interview panel to wile away time and Yoo In Na defo ships Shin and Yeo HAHA. She said LDW seemed like the female lead at times HAHAA And Gong Yoo thereafter spoke about his long lashes. I swear to god the whole cast ships them. The interview panel was subbed in mandarin and I’m not great at it but I think I read it correctly haha.
> 
> Also an artist on twitter made a Selfie (great TV show with Jack Cho on it) parody of Shin and Yeo and it was so accurate I CAN’T HANDLE THE CUTENESS. (I basically stalk the tags on twitter, i know i need a life)
> 
> Here it is: https://twitter.com/KS_hanssi/status/839608129398558720  
> The idea for checking if it's natural rain or goblin rain came from the same idea. I can't find the link to the direct artwork but they're the one who came up with it! Go check them out, they're brilliant! The amount of angst and cute is amazing.
> 
> For the Selfie parody, Shin asked Yeo to blink if he likes him. Yup. That’s it. STUPID REAPER. 
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed this super short instalment, just a 3 part fluffy thing.


	14. Finding the way back home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shin's return from limbo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> drabbly thing whilst i juggle school, commissions and my bleeding heart for these characters.
> 
> Eh, don't like this. (tbh I don't like a lot of my fics/creative work, it's just that I go by the mantra of throwing out whatever I've done in the name of progress. Critiques and comments are welcome! Make mistakes, learn from them etc.)
> 
> I should try keeping a steady style/theme within these drabbles. Gah. 
> 
> Something to tide you in whilst I write the long oneshot fic haha. ow my heart

The air he breathed into his lungs was fresh, sharp, crisp. A contrast to the dryness of limbo.

Eun Tak's lips parted with surprise. There was no recognition in her eyes when they fell on the bedraggled goblin. A stranger.

He was a myth once more to the people he loved. The goblin was familiar with loss, had been experiencing it for far too long, weary eyes a testament to the many tears he had shed in the centuries god decided to conceive him.

A Goblin. Immortal, powerful, almighty. Vulnerable to only time's slow and cruel hand.

Disappearing into thin air from the roof top, he searches for someone, anyone, who may remember him. Know him. Acknowledge that he _exists_. He needs to know that the droll and dreariness of near-millenia was _real_. To pull him into an embrace and welcome him home, to wrench him away from the growing dread that all the toil in the space between heaven and hell had been for naught.

Deok Hwa calls the security on him. Kim Sun stares at him with curiosity, waitresses taking up her attention.

Is this the next stage of his punishment? Has he not redeemed himself in god's eyes? Why did he have to suffer through the illusion that he had somewhere to come back to?

Clad in rusted armour his silhouette amidst the body of people is out of place, out of time.

Shin is an anomaly. A pebble in the sand. A fish lost in the expanse of the ocean.

It had been foolish to hope for otherwise. Loss was familiar but every person that left him always left an authentic wound on his heart, bleeding and throbbing with their own flavour of pain.

There is nothing left for him except despair. As he insults the reaper, the light in Shin's eyes fade as does his faith for remembrance.

The slight tremble of the reaper's reply is a melody. Soft, sweet and fine like aged wine.

Yeo remembers. 

 

-end-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> Hopefully my writing has improved somewhat from when I first started out lol. BLAh I try


	15. Unintended Jab

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He didn’t mean to do it, truly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short hurt/comfort thing (instead of the stuff I’ve planned lol). Inspired by Strong Woman Do Bong Soon (Which is really adorable and fluffy and you should totally watch it). If you want to chat about it, hit me up in the comments huhu
> 
> Warning: blood, gore, violence, war, panic attacks and trauma

He didn’t mean to do it.

Truly.

He didn’t.

When god conceived the goblin, He had gifted him with superhuman abilities, othered him from the masses. The goblin’s fire was hotter than any regular flame, blazing brightly in blue, often licking the surface of his coat in accordance to his tempers. They were cool, as Eun Tak had put simply, despite not wanting to brush Shin’s ego further.

The goblin’s telekinesis had its perks too. Dishes washed themselves, beds made themselves, pages turned themselves. Everything in his vicinity was at his whimsy.

Regardless, just as with any advantage, there were downsides as well.

His immortality for one.

It had been his belief that _that_ was all. “That” was an understatement but Shin had thought he had experienced all the troubles his status as goblin brought him.

With his arms trembling to the reaper’s spasms of pain, his palms pressed into the reaper’s abdomen, his fingers covered in the reaper’s warm blood- Shin knew, he had thought wrong.

* * *

The idea of watching the parade whilst in Canada had been at Eun Tak’s insistence. The trip’s intended purpose had been simple. Shin had wanted to introduce her to another steakhouse he favoured, a reward for her recent effort put into her studies.

The parade in the streets had been unexpected.

At first there was the brass band with their trombones, trumpets, cymbals and drums. Several dancers in red dresses trailed gracefully after them. The crowd was greater than he was used to, nothing alien however.

What came after however, triggered a spell of cold sweat.

A parade of horses, some ridden by riders in immaculate suits, some pulling ornamented carriages.

The clip clop of horseshoes on the tar pavement was even initially, as coordinated as tame horses could. Large nostrils huffed and puffed in the effort to weave through the narrow street with the added weight on their backs. Their ears flicked back and forth with anxiety from the noisy spectators.

It took one horse to stir the rest into chaos, high pitched neighs and whinnies spread through the herd like a disease, several horses rearing and backing into each other. Their riders and caretakers yelled in fright, overwhelmed by their panic. In the conundrum, the brass band lost their cohesion, trumpets blaring strained tunes, drums out of sync.

There was a reason why Shin feared anything to do with horses.

His vision swam, the red, whites and browns of the parade horses blurred into a muddle of colour. The noises were loud yet muffled in his ears, the floor hard but unsteady. He feels the muscles in his neck and limbs tense as cold sweat dribbled down them.

He couldn’t breathe even as he gasped like a fish out of water, pupils dilated and shining with tears, heart threatening to break out of his ribcage.

Absently, he hears Eun Tak’s alarmed cry and pleas for him to _calm down but he can’t there are horses and drums and people screaming-_

939 years ago he had been on the mud filled plains battling invading forces.

The war horses had neighed and whinnied in fright at the sounds of metal meeting flesh, men yelling war cries and their riders wetting their fur and saddle with blood.

Shin had swung his sword into enemy riders’ torsos, occasionally grazing their steeds in the chaos. Horse and human blood intermingled when they splattered onto his face, the coppery taste never quite left his tongue even if he had gargled and rinsed his mouth after the battle.

In war, the fear of death clutches every soldier’s heart. It never quite lets go.

He wants to vomit.

He wants to run away.

_He needs to escape._

The crowd’s screams in surprise at the blue flames and Eun Tak’s yell of his name are the last things he hears before he flees to the quiet of his mansion.

* * *

The crash of porcelain and splintering of wood is what draws the reaper to the kitchen. He is met with a goblin curled by the corner of the kitchen cabinets, hyperventilating amidst the racks of sobs that course through his body.

Shin’s eyes are unfocused, fingers clenching his collar in a death grip, saliva threatening to dribble down his parted lips as he attempts to take breath. Pots, pans, knives and other kitchen utensils float about the kitchen in tandem to the goblin’s sobs, each tinged with blue flames. The room is sweltering with the unnatural heat.

Frost attempts to smite the ethereal flames as the reaper approaches the goblin quickly but calmly. Squatting close, he whispers.

“You’re alright. You’re okay. You’re here. I’m here. We are in the kitchen.”

The sobs did not falter in their frequency.

“You’re okay. Think about something else. You’re at home. You bought 10 packets of steak. You have a plan on how to cook them.”

The reaper moves to place his hand on the goblin in attempts to comfort him, not expecting the flash of fear Shin directs at him, a knife aflame with blue fire flies into his stomach.

The pain doesn’t register immediately, mayhap it is because he’s never been mortally wounded before.

The reaper falls unto his back, hissing in pain when he meets the heated flooring. The knife is buried deep into his flesh and the blood is seeping into his light grey sweater. Combined with the jolt of the impact, the pain is near unbearable.

It is secondary however, to the current issue that was his housemate.

The reaper knows but four people who are not reapers themselves.

By order of preference, Sunny, Eun Tak, Deok Hwa and Kim Shin.

“You’re okay, you’re okay.” The reaper knows he’s not very assuring or comforting at the moment, straining to not cry from the burning sensation in his abdomen. “You messed up the laundry again. You’re wearing my shirt.” The knife is still ablaze, licking at his skin and scorching the area around the wound.

Shin is visibly trembling, struggling to hold his grasp on reality.

Gritting his teeth, the reaper heaves himself up, the stain on the floor is worrisome. He can’t hide the flinch but the goblin doesn’t notice. He reaches for Shin’s shoulder again, this time making sure the goblin’s eyes are on him.

“Look here you clumsy goblin.” It’s difficult to forget about the pain but it's even easier to insult his housemate. “You’re alright. Deep breaths. Inhale. Exhale.Think about Eun Tak’s laughter. Deok Hwa’s selfies. Your stupid steaks.”

The reaper manages to hold out until Shin’s sobs soften and his breathing evens slightly. He slumps and lands face down onto Shin’s lap, moaning at the same time as the kitchen utensils crash onto the floor.

Shin lets out a shaky laugh, unaware of the reaper’s pain and ignoring his current proximity to him.

“You… you’ll help me clean this up right?”

The angry hiss he receives in response is classic, expected, _normal_. His back and forth with the reaper was typified with exaggerated bouts of pettiness and competitiveness. It is grounding.

“What… what... are you doing on my lap?! Agh! Get off me!” Shin shoves the reaper gently, not quite wanting to push him away nor keep him there. The reaper slides off his thigh to lie on his back beside Shin’s outstretched legs, groaning as the knife shifts slightly from the movement.

“Wh-what is that!?” The goblin’s cry of shock is rough from the soreness of his prior sobs. It is reflex to reach out and press the wound, blood oozing in pulses and soaking his coat sleeves. He flinches at the reaper’s outcry from the touch, tensing in tandem to his housemate.

The warm life-giving liquid between his fingers was unpleasant. Especially when he was still recovering from his recent panic. It is his fault his friend is bleeding out on the floor. His friend was going to die. His friend wasn’t supposed to die.

“Shut up. I’m… fine.” The reaper’s voice was as steady as he could muster in the haze of pain. He attempted to regulate his breath in between the assurances. “I’m… fine. I’m fine.”

“You’re not! I-I just stabbed you!”

“Just… get the knife out! I. Am. Fine.” Gritting out the words, the reaper’s face flushed from both anger and agony, hair sticking to his sweaty forehead. The reaper’s obverse mode of comfort was working however, with Shin remaining calm enough to remove the knife.

“Agh!”

“Sorry!” It was strange to hear the goblin apologise at such a high pitch. The reaper honed in on the thought of making fun of it later rather than the torture he was currently experiencing.

“This is serious! Stop thinking about material to joke about!”

“Just keep y-ick! Your hands steady!” How did he get himself in this situation?! “I’m already bloody dead! I. Can’t. Die!”

“But you’re bleeding out!”

“I can heal myself! Just… gah, stay there and make sure I don’t lose consciousness before my wound closes.”

“O-okay.”

The preceding silence was filled with Yeo’s laboured breathing. For all the drama just moments prior, the quiet was awkward.

“You didn’t mean to do it.”

“What?” Shin jumped slightly in surprise.

“You didn’t mean to do it.”

“I heard you the first time. What?”

“I was foolish enough to approach you like that. I should’ve approached slower.”

Under regular circumstances, Shin would have jabbed at the reaper’s admission.

“Thanks, for, uh, dealing with me.”

“Whatever.”

With his eyes shut, the reaper was lulled into restful unconsciousness, the area where he’d been stabbed already healed, merely a pink patch remained. When Shin felt calm and assured enough to get up to clean up, he peered at the reaper’s peaceful form amidst the chaos of his surroundings.

Toweling his hands dry and removing his bloodied coat he went in search of clean clothes. It was a strange experience to undress his housemate of the ruined shirt. It was a stranger experience to wipe clean the dried blood on the reaper’s stomach. It was pure obligation. Absolutely.

Clothed in what Shin deemed the softest top he could find in the reaper’s wardrobe, Shin slipped his arms underneath the reaper’s shoulders and at the back of his knees. Hefting the reaper carefully as to not jostle him, Shin carried him to his bedroom and deposited him on the bed. He made sure the reaper’s limp limbs weren’t positioned uncomfortably.

Before he pulled the covers over the reaper’s head, Shin watched the slight rise and fall of his chest. His pink lips parted with some saliva threatening to dribble down to his jaw. His long lashes. His nose twitching to his breathing.

With a light laugh, Shin pulled the blanket over the reaper’s head. What a silly way to sleep. Turning off the lights and shutting the doors, Shin whispered.

_Thank you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't really like it myself but I hope you do lol. Anyway this started out as just a plain exploration as to why Shin would be afraid of horse blood. I then realised there's no reason why he'd be afraid of blood specific to horses since it's the same with all sorts of blood. So pretend Shin is afraid of horses. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	16. Awkward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Awkward breakfasts and ruined dining tables result in stranger confessions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to write a really ambitious smut fic but whilst building the premises for it I wrote fluff instead. I wonder if fluff and sex can mix haha. I'll try again next time. 
> 
> Till then enjoy this tiny cute (hopefully) snippet.

Difficult. An adjective appropriate for the two men before her Eun Tak’s mental dictionary supplied her. Frustrating they definitely were.

“Will you two just kiss already? You guys have been like this for _years_ and I’m going to pull my hair out if you to continue being like this when Deok Hwa actually matures.”

“ _Hey!”_

With a huff the young radio station manager stands to leave, leaving a pouting Deok Hwa and ignoring two men too flustered to reprimand her rudeness. Whilst walking she digs her purse for her phone. She shoots a few quick messages to Sunny, rife with exclamation points and angry emojis. There were emojis huffing steam out of their nostrils as well.

“Uncles, she has a point you know?”

“You welp!” “You!”  They yell in unison from opposite ends of the dining table before biting their tongues. Shaking his head, the young heir, now the director, pulls out the fork piercing the wooden surface, stuffing the final chunk of bacon on his plate into his mouth with a snort. The state of the table was a testament to how his uncles’ spats borne from a very volatile relationship were going _too far._  

This was the 24th time since his uncle’s return that the dining table had to be replaced.

There had been scorched dining tables, frozen dining tables and most recently, dining tables experiencing an acupuncture experience like no other with cutleries stabbing almost every available surface. 

Despite the insults she constantly threw at him, Deok Hwa shared Eun Tak’s sentiments.

It was absolutely impossible to step into a house where two grown men were still sorting out their _feelings_ . For _each other._ It was almost disgustingly cheesy, how his uncles fell into the stereotype of men fighting in lieu of dealing with their emotions.

“I’ll leave you two married lovebirds to your privacy. Hopefully time alone will fix,” He gestured towards the porcupine-like tabletop,”this.”

“Yah, you’ve got some nerve you brat!” “Yah, you brat!”

Silence.

“See what I mean? Bye now and thank you for breakfast!”

Slamming the door shut the mansion falls silent once more. There is nothing making a peep. Irregardless, with their thoughts going at breakneck speed with their growing panic, the mansion is _noisier_ than it usually is. 

“Um.”

Yeo swallowed. 

“Do you want to go on a date with me?” “Do you want to go on a date with me?”

“Stop repeating what I want to say!” “Stop repeating what I want to say!”

“Yah!” “Yah!”

In the garden, peach blossoms are blooming. In the garden, it is also snowing. With each flower and each snowflake, their reddened cheeks tense into choked laughter. Slowly, the awkwardness dissolves into hearty laughs that ripple through the mansion, extinguishing the suffocating atmosphere before. 

“A date then?” Shin smiles with a crinkle in his eyes.

“Yeah, I’d like that.” Yeo grins with eagerness in his.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so disappointed this fandom doesn't have more fics or artwork. *weeping from overexertion* Lol, it's alright, I have a good deal of fun with all this. I don't think I'll have time to write when UNI starts.
> 
> Thank you for reading my trash! Hahaha.


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